#it's meant to be an ongoing series <3 i loved that quote and had to do something about it

[galadrielslight]

Whether they're in close proximity to each other or not, their relationship is going to be a theme throughout the show.

Galadriel & Sauron ✧˖*°࿐✦ their connection ─ a gifset series 2/[...] S02E01: Elven Kings Under the Sky

[royallyprincesslilly]

Lewis Hamilton Masterlist

Here is my long-awaited and asked-for masterlist for all my Lewis Hamilton fics thus far. As a warning, there is a HELL OF A LOT here. WOW, and I am sure there will be a hell of a lot more to be added.

Thank you ALL for reading, liking, and reblogging. I appreciate the reception and the love more than you know. ❤️

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Things To Know:

-I'm Lilly you may call me that or Lee.

-There is a psychologically proven link between content interaction and content creation. Simply, the more interaction with something (content) or someone, the more content is produced. {Wink, Wink}

-If you are sensitive to angst or erotica this may be an uncomfortable, high blood pressure-inducing, hedonistic place for you. LOL.

-Pay attention to my warnings section.

-My content is meant for individuals 18 and older. If you are under 18 please DO NOT INTERACT.

-Do NOT reproduce, or translate any of my work on any platform. I do not consent to that. Also, DO NOT steal what I write. That's an a$$hole thing to do.

-YOU are responsible for managing what content you consume. NOT ME. Heed warnings that open the stories.

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Content Meter:

*Mentions of NSFW content. Not explicit or even detailed.

**Half of the work is NSFW and recommended to be read at YOUR discretion. Can be explicit and/or detailed.

***Most of the work is NSFW. Don't read this at work, or around others you might feel embarrassed with them knowing you're freaky. Very detailed, and very explicit.

****Pure Filth. Don't read this anywhere not private unless you can handle the consequences. All the details, no limits on explicit content. This is NOT "wham, bam thank you, ma'am". There is work being put in!

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Oh, one more thing! Did you know, I take commissions? I do! So have something you want just for you? Send a DM and let's talk about it!

One last thing! My writing takes time, care, energy, and an endless well of creativity. It's as fun for me to write it as it is for you to read it. So, if would like to show your monetary support, appreciation, and or like for me and what I create here, check out my Ko-Fi and CashApp links in my bio.

Thank you in advance for the love. ❤️❤️

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Series/Mini-Series

-If This Is Love Mini-Series {COMPLETED}

Lewis Hamilton x Mercedes Owner Daughter Reader

Title: If This Is Love--

Summary: Against your better judgement, you allowed Lewis to woo you. For 10 months he chased you with more determination than a starving wolf. You finally gave in and found happiness and what you thought was love. Thought is the operative word as you stare at the pictures from his week in Antarctica, pictures that show you definitely had been made a fool of.

{1}-If This Is Love, I Don't Want It | {2}-If This Is Love, You Need To Prove It | {3}-If This Is Love, You Need To Mean It | {4}-If This Is Love, You Gotta Ride For Me | {5}-If This Is Love, It’s Forever

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-A Long Time Coming Mini-Series {COMPLETED}

Lewis Hamilton x Best Friend Reader

Title: A Long Time Coming

Summary: After a long, grueling and stressful 2023 season where Lewis dominated and showed the world once again why he was the best at what he does. He walks away with his 8th championship title and plans with his closest and bestest for some much-needed R&R.

{1} | {2}* | {3}***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-What We Did In The Dark Series {ONGOING}

Lewis Hamilton x Reader

Title: What We Did In The Dark

Summary: Neither of you planned any of it. You’d met by chance, and everything that happened after had to have been predestined. There was no way blazing passion like what was between you was something coincidental.

{1}**** | {2}* | {3} | {4} | {5}....(Coming Soon)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-3P Series {ONGOING}

Lewis Hamilton x Famous Singer Reader x Aaron Pierre

Title: 3P

Summary:“Sharing is caring���, “The more the merrier”, “Love knows no bounds”. There are so many quotes that circulate that can be tied to love and relationships. Two of the many you like happens to be “Two is better than one” and “The more the merrier”. Now it wasn’t like you particularly and purposely went out your way to collect men. That wasn’t the case at all. It’s just that there were two gorgeous faces in the sea of bodies at Coachella that you couldn’t decide which you wanted more. So you decided why choose. That was 4 months ago and now everything was much more complicated than you’d ever intended.

{1} | {2}...(Coming Soon)

{More To Come...}

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One,Two, & Three Shots

-Trauma: Hysteria | Trauma 2: (Coming Soon)

-Wasted Time | Wasted Love | Wasted 3: (Coming Soon)

-Forever Mine***

-She Calls Me Daddy Now***

-Everybody Else Is No. 2***

-You First***

-Message My Heart

-Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You**

-Stake My Claim*

-Plus Baby Makes Three**

-Love Will Remember***

-Thirsty Or Parched**

-Just Do It

-One Night****

-True Peace***

-Book Trap {Social Media Collection}**

-Lil' Love*

-4am Drunk Calls**

-Show Me**

-Ion't Even Need 7 Minutes***

-Taste The Rainbow***

-Forever & Ever & Ever & Ever--But Not Right Now**

-Morning Voice {Headcannon}**

-1, 2, 3 {SongFic}***

-It'll Be Fun They Said {Social Media AU}

-Trick Or Treat {Headcannon}

-Forgive Me, I Am A Sinner {Any Celeb}** | No Saints Here...(Coming Soon)

-Going Once, Going Twice (Coming Soon)

-Once Bitten | Twice Shy | Thrice My Lady... (Coming Soon)

-Distraction... (Coming Soon)

-Unruly.... (Coming Soon)

-Slip Of The Tongue.... (Coming Soon)

-Do That Again.... (Coming Soon)

-R&R.... (Coming Soon)

-You Make Me Want.... (Coming Soon)

-Grown Folks Thangs... (Coming Soon)

-Truth Is.... (Coming Soon)

-Behind The Mask | Behind Closed Doors | Underneath Your Clothes | Behind The Name.... (Coming Soon)

-When It Hits Hard.... (Coming Soon)

-Lil' Princess.... (Coming Soon)

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[alovelyburn]

The last Twitter Stuff Post (probably)

I’m gonna be honest, I find reading about Miura kind of depressing and reading about his plans for the series quite depressing as well, so I decided to go through the whole twitter (well as much as the site will permit), grab the rest of everything of note to me and put it all in this post.

So yes, More Stuff Miura Said

1. The Lost Chapter - did you know it’s usually posted with the pages out of order? True story. [ link ]

1a. Clarification on the canonicity of the lost chapter - he just revealed too much too soon. He thought something that big should wait until the end. [ link ]

2. People like to say Miura said the ending of Berserk would be happy, but I’ve never found a source for that. The closest I’ve seen is this (I’ve seen it before now but you know the link is here so), which is basically just “I’m trying not to make it a tragedy, idk if it’ll be happy but I want to leave at least some sense of hope.��� [ link ]

2a. He also had another quote that was basically the same, where he said he didn’t think such a long story should have a grim ending like Guts suddenly dying. Which like,. lmao, there’s that Go Nagai jumping out again except he pushed it back in the box.

3. If the kojion (the twitter user) ever posted this in the original japanese I missed it, which is a shame because i can’t quite parse the final part, but it seems to be saying that the time when everyone is traveling together is about to end. ...I really really miss Miura. [ link ]

4. The faces that line the world during the Eclipse represent the common will of humanity? [ link ]

5. Oh yeah, here’s the famous (to me anyway lmao) line where he talks about the androgynous characters and says usually (but not always) a beautiful androgynous protagonist’s femininity comes out and they fall in love with men. And that he felt he should provide a character like that with both male and female love interests. He’s talking about the protagonist to Duranki btw, but it’s interesting considering the way he drew Sheephead. [ link ]

6. Here’s some information on extent of Mori’s involvement in Berserk - I’ve seen a lot of people fear that Mori was working on 20 year old memories from the first time Miura sat down and plotted the rest of the series out, but their conversations were ongoing. [ link ]

7. Someone asked Miura if Guts and Griffith will fight in the end and he just kind of launched into a discussion of Berserk’s cosmology and what it would take to hurt an astral body. [ link ]

8. About Casca, it’s well known that he said he designed her physically to match his taste at the time, but less discussed that her personality was designed as a compilation of his own complexes and weaknesses. That’s pretty interesting to me because I always thought she was meant to be a strong badass but he was just bad at writing women back then. But it appears she was perhaps just not intended to be as strong and badass as I’d assumed.. [ link ]

9. This is just kind of funny to me - Miura complaining about all the Huge Swords that came after the Dragonslayer but without the kind of consideration as to what kind of body or stance it would take to actually wield something like that. [ link ]

10. Explanation of the nature of behelits - they are souls that fall from the astral plane, and their messed up face represents their fragmentation. ...but he made that up to explain it after he’d already designed them, which he did on a whim. [ link ]

11. kojion kept talking about a second golden age-esque arc that covered the Skull Knight’s history, and when asked where that came from, they explained that it was mentioned in the video interview that showed at the Berserk exhibition. [ link ]

12. This is pretty fascinating - he said that looking at the Eclipse made him want to hit his younger self in the face and ask what was wrong with him, and that he couldn’t do it now because he isn’t depressed anymore. You know, that’s interesting because there’s been a lot of discussion (mostly elsewhere) about the question of whether Miura ended up regretting some of the extremes in the Eclipse, and most particularly Casca’s rape. Because it.... gets played down a LOT and had absolutely no effect on Griffith’s presentation. And I do think part of that is Cultural Differences, because the West is a lot more angry about rape in fiction than Japan tends to be. But it does kind of sound like maybe he wouldn’t have done it again, if he had it to do over. [ link ]

13. I wish I could find it, but there’s a tweet in there somewhere about how he wouldn’t have women in the manga at all if he just did whatever he wanted, but that would be bad for the story. This is kind of tied into something he talked about a lot that I didn’t link to because I’m not trying to catalogue Miura’s life - he just didn’t know any women aside from relatives and his best friend’s wife, because he didn’t date at all or have many friends due to his being a shut-in who worked on manga 24/7. Anyway, I’ll look for the link again later and add it if I can find it.

14. According to Miura, all the relationships and such in the Golden Age really happened to him and his friends (in a not-fantastical way, of course). Which I think explains some of the tonal difference between the GA and the rest of the series. [ link ]

15. I believe this is his speech from when he won the Tezuka Osamu Award. [ link ]

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story��

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[shinylitwick94]

Finished “The Way of Kings”, by Brandon Sanderson, first in the Stormlight Archive.

I liked it, but the things that annoy me about the way Sanderson writes didn’t magically stop annoying me. Go figure.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the whole book! And very long post!

Dislikes:

1. This book is far, far too long.

It’s 1000 pages long and...not much happens. It’s mainly worldbuilding and setup for future books. A few things do happen, of course, but they’re mostly concentrated at the end of the book. Almost nothing happens in the entire middle portion.

It depends on the POV characters of course, but really, you could remove almost half of it and have a better book. Dalinar’s story is the only one where I feel you wouldn’t have to cut out much. Shallan could easily be 1/3 shorter. And in Kaladin’s case you could (and IMHO opinion should) remove half of it.

Kaladin’s story in particular I found was repetitive and dragged down the pace of the book. You could remove or condense half of those small incidents and still keep the story. Same for his flashbacks. You could have had 1 flashback or maybe 2, and still keep the same elements, instead of what felt like 20.

I’ve had this complaint about a lot of other fantasy books (Wheel of Time, Malazan, Memory, Sorrow, Thorn, even ASOIAF...), but the fact is that the genre is far too willing to tolerate barely edited 500+ page monstrosities. Yes, sometimes it’s justified, but most of the time it’s really not. This didn’t bother me as much when I was a 12 year old with nothing else to do, but as an adult, having to push through 500 pages of fluff to get to a story pisses me off.

To contrast, as usual when I complain about this, the entirety of LOTR is also roughly a thousand pages long. Frodo went to Mordor and back in the time it took Kaladin to get out of Sadeas’ warcamp.

2. I have multiple issues with Sanderson’s writing.

Two major problems here: repetitiveness and action scenes too detailed for my taste.

Sometimes both at the same time.

By which I mean stuff like this:

“Ten heartbeats after the passing of the guards, Szeth Lashed himself to the wall. That direction became down for him, and he was able to run up the side of the stone fortification. As he reached the top, he leaped forward, then briefly Lashed himself backward. He spun over the top of the wall in a tucked flip, then Lashed himself back to the wall again. He came down with feet planted on the stones, facing the ground. He ran and Lashed himself downward again, dropping the last few feet”

(quote thing not working, so italics it is)

This sort of paragraph makes my eyes bleed. And Sanderson’s action scenes are unfortunately always full of this stuff. This was the primary thing that made me decide not to continue with Mistborn and was also the thing that made me drop this book the first time, because the first chapter is like this.

Basically what happens here is that Sanderson really likes his worldbuilding and his magic. So he feels the need to beat you over the head with them again and again and again and again.

It’s most noticeable in action scenes like this, and granted I’m not super fond of action in the first place and tend to skim it,  but it also happens in regular prose, since he also apparently thinks his readers have the attention span of a goldfish and so repeatedly explains something he already explained three chapters ago.

In the first ten chapters I felt like he taught me how spheres worked a good 4-5 times.

It just makes me feel like I’m going through a forced tutorial and being treated like a child. FFS trust that your readers can pick up on stuff on their own.

From what I’ve seen a lot of people actually like this overexplaining BS, so it’s clearly a matter of taste, but it sure as hell isn’t to my taste.

Things I’m neutral on:

Characters

The characters land themselves in neutral because while there are some very good ones (hi Dalinar!), most of them are just kind of meh.

Looking at our POV characters, I’d class both Shallan and Kaladin as meh. They’re interesting enough, but not really captivating to read. Just very standard archetypal characters. Nothing wrong with them, but also nothing stands out.

Dalinar and maybe Szeth are the only POV that I really enjoyed as characters on their own.

The secondary cast is fine, with some characters I really liked (Navani, Jasnah, Sadeas - yes, I know, I’ll get to that in a second) and a lot of others that were just ok.

Bridge Four for me falls into this last category. I mentioned in an earlier post that this part of the plot brings to mind Spartacus, Gladiator and now that I think about it even prison movies. Essentially things where an heroic main character is dumped in with a group of dispirited hopeless men and tries to do something with them, which is Kaladin’s whole story here. More importantly, the characters in Bridge Four also largely follow the archetypes for this kind of setting - you have the Gentle Big Guy, the Clever Guy, the Guy Who Does Not Trust The Hero, The Unexpectedly Cultured Guy, The Old Veteran, etc.

Which at the end of the day meant I had trouble connecting to bridge four because I couldn’t look past the archetypes.

To get back to Sadeas - he’s introduced as such an obviously evil character that I really hoped he’d turn out to be something else up until the very end. It would have been far more interesting to have him be a genuine if rahter unscrupulous rival than a very boring, very predictable traitor. This hope is what made me like him so much at first. Alas, it was not to be.

Things I liked:

1. Worldbuilding

Of course.This is what Sanderson is best at and it really shines through here.

Roshar is massively detailed at every level and Sanderson makes sure his big choices regarding the world’s setup are reflected in both the natural world and the societies he creates.

I loved the focus on the natural world, in particular. It’s an aspect that most other fantasy authors don’t usually devote a lot of time to, but Sanderson clearly loves it.

Forget adaptations - I’d kill for an Attenborough-esque documentary on Roshar’s fauna and flora!

The worldbuilding feels a little bit shallower when it comes to peoples and societies, but really this is just nitpicking on my part, it’s great overall.

2. Plot

The plot itself is pretty interesting, even if the pacing could use some improvement.

I particularly liked Dalinar’s part, and Shallan’s once it actually picks up speed.

The ending was also very intense and a lot of fun to read, with what I felt was a good mix of action and big reveals.

Honestly, regardless of my complaining above, I enjoyed this book and had a great time reading it. It’s fun, it just takes a while to get there. And I will be picking up the rest of the series eventually.

For me it’s a solid 4 stars.

As for recommending this, I’d say it’s good for people who already enjoy fantasy a bit, are looking for something completely different and don’t mind a slow start. Oh, and people who want a series that is ongoing but very likely to be finished in a timely manner. Sanderson delivers when it comes to his writing. No Martin/Rothfuss surprises here.

[rayonfrozenwings]

Hey mutuals, followers and p0rn bots, 

Its my blogs 3rd birthday! 

I’ve been lurking, posting, ranting in the SJM fandom on tumblr for three years and that’s kinda Crazy to me. 

So here are some fun Facts that kinda evolve into an appreciation post… and then an anecdotal history of this fandom I’ve been a part of. So thanks for hanging round and talking shit with me. :D

if ur tagged it’s just like a thanks or when I met you - lol you don’t have to read the whole thing... 

and the rest is under the cut.... 

I only liked posts for the First month, I never reblogged. It was my first time on tumblr.

I’ve had the same URL since the start

The first post I reblogged and commented on was @miladyaelin ‘s post about a Volcano in the Frozen Wastes - such a wasted opportunity for World destruction that was not used to full potential at all in KoA hahaha - maybe a spin off series? joke.

The first person to reply to one of my asks was abookandacoffee or @bookofmirth 3 months after I joined tumblr and that’s kinda scary because that means we have been speaking longer than we realised. 

@propshophannah​ thanks for letting me go nuts about theory with you!

The Big blogs in the SJM fandom change, and it's cool that being in the fandom for so long means that I get to talk with all these people and make some real friends.

I made read friends from reading books and talking about them - How Cool Is That!

I had fun making shit posts about Dorian’s couch, Rowan’s relationship status after EoS and seeing my friends come up with some pretty clever memes too. 

The Art is amazing, and actually getting to talk to artists about their art is something I didn't think would happen ever. So I’m so grateful to tumblr for that.

I want to tag a lot of people but - having been here so long means that urls change and I lose touch - plus I think I would go over the “50 tag limit” easily. 

The first kiwi blog who I talked to was @verifiefangirl and we bonded over the Old El Paso advert of “why not both”. 

I want to thank those who encouraged me to write my theories, and I did that for the first year on here. 

I want to say thank you to the people who told me “You know, you can write your theories as fic and people don't get as angry.” Because you were right! And so that started my writing of fan fic, and thank you to those people who wanted to be tagged and let me know what was up - sorry I haven’t written in a while. 

Thank You to @faenet and my Faenet Fam. I joined to share theories, switched it up to write fic, and then evolved into Edits. I was able to learn how discord works and be a part of a team and learn new photo editing skills - I knew nothing before I joined and it's so cool to have become a part of that community.

Thanks to my BookClub brotp - It’s been the best getting to know you all over the last year, discuss books and life. And just have fun. I honestly wouldn't have connected with you guys if we just relied on tumblr because it often requires me to say something first, and i'm not good at that. @theyretheirthere​ sorry I had to tag you twinnie. :P 

Some Fandom History for those who have been here a while ... (well for as long as I have been in the fandom, I know there was a time before this).

Phase One - POST EOS Theory and Beach Scene Debate, Elorcan exists now even tho People still HATE Lorcan (not me but lots of people did). ACOMAF love, nickname of Tam the tampon takes off. 

Phase Two - PRE ACOWAR, Moreil Hype, Fandom super excited, Acomaf love, Rhysand love.

Phase Three - ACOWAR IS AWFUL - Dumpsters on Fire, lots of fandom people left. The ones who stayed had discourse about Moriel, Mor’s sexuality, Nessian, the ending and how it was rushed, Azriel is a smol cinnamon roll who deserved better - lots of Az fics and the birth of Elriel started here. 

Phase Four - TOG FANDOM ARE MAD because Chaol’s novella turned into a Novel. Cyber bullying of Chaol lovers in fandom led to a lot of blogs leaving - just be kind to one another, you can talk about stuff without personal attacks.   

Phase Five - WE ARE ALL GOING STIR CRAZY, Someone released a TOD mock cover and there was a lot of ableist stuff going on. Bad time in fandom. 

Phase six - TOD Came out - Lots of people refused to read, other people felt vindicated about theories, other people were shocked about Maeve. Praise and Hate towards the book and for how SJM handled race and disability. Was she being sensitive or appropriating? Mixed Reviews, again fandom got a little smaller. Acotar Fandom was taking off in terms of fics. 

Phase Seven - Acotar Fandom PRE ACOFAS Fan Fic Mania. Most of us re-read acotar, acomaf, acowar and Fix-it fics, Nessian Fics, Feysand Fics, Lots of Fics. Lots of Art. I noticed the ACOTAR fandom kinda took off while the TOG one floundered.

Phase Eight - A New Novella for ACOTAR, ACOFAS - lots of hype. Lots of mixed reviews - “it had no plot” or “I love it” or “I don't like how the first pov changed depending on the character” or “Yay christmas!!!” or “boo wall scene” or “yay Wall scene!!” Again - more fics and art came from it. Snowball fight was a highlight, art was gorgeous, Amren as a snowball was also good. Fandom was flourishing again, yes we lost some people but we also had a resurgence in creative content.

Weird non-phase - Catwoman: Soul Stealer, was released but wasn't a “must read” for many people.

Phase Nine - Pre KoA, Fandom was Hyped! We were all doing our re-reads, theories came out again, discussions about favourite quotes of things we had forgotten were shared. Again - Some good ToG fic came out because people had it fresh in their minds again  - we were preparing. Edits were great, lots of Edits, Lots of Art. 

Phase Ten - KoA Came out and destroyed us. Fandom was relatively quiet while people abandoned tumblr to read it. Anti’s came out in force, they had more to say about it that the fans did. Fans didn't see this immediately because they weren't on tumblr. About a month after release, We got Meta and discourse on KoA and what it means and what Aelin’s story has meant to us personally. Edits started taking off again. This Phase is still ongoing even a year later. Personally I am in Awe of that book and what it managed to achieve, I wanted to re-read it straight away but it still has so many parts that HURT to read. 

New people slowly trickle into fandom, or pick up the books, its sweet, but as a veteran sometimes seeing the same arguments gets tiring and so I dont comment as much as I used to. I’m still here reading, but I don't really want to write another essay like the ones I've previously written to defend a point so i’m quiet. 

Where I think it will go next? 

Most of the people who remain in the fandom are good at looking at things with a critical eye but saying “I can still enjoy a book”, which I like. 

We will get hyped as a fandom for Crescent City which was pushed back to March 2020, even if we are unsure it’s what we want, I don't think we can help ourselves. 

ACOTAR 4 is in the works with no confirmed release date, just vague mention that it was being pushed back - twas supposed to be 2020 but I'm doubtful, especially if other titles are pushed back first like CC:HOEAB - it was by three months from Jan to March. 

WOTOG was also pushed back, first from release with EoS, then from release with ToD and now from release with KoA (those are all goodreads dates as I was waiting for it and keeping an eye out, but we also had novels added and other books like acofas - goodreads also isn't the best at staying on top of release dates)…. we have had mention of it that it will include art and is co-authored by Lynette Noni, so It is still being made at least - I mean I don't have to cry about it being cancelled just yet. And So I have to stay around for those. I became invested in the World building of TOG to not wait for WOTOG. 

So yeah, it’s been a wild 3 years. <3

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you ever had a computer virus before? Not with any of my Apple laptops, which I’ve been getting for over 10 years now. Prior to that, I did have a few issues with viruses. Not fun.

Are you dependent upon anyone? >> Of course. Everyone’s dependent on someone, even if only indirectly. <<< True. I’m also very dependent upon my family, especially my mom.

Are there any book characters you’d like to portray? Uh, I don’t want to portray any character. I’m definitely no actor.

Who did you last text? My dad.

Is there anything on your bed right now? Yeah, several pillows, my bedsheets, my throw blanket, a few stuffed animals, a coloring book, a couple sets of colored pencils, two little pencil sharpeners, a little notebook, a book, an Nintendo Switch, my laptop, my phone, the chargers for aforementioned electronics... lol my bed is also my desk since I spend majority of my time in bed.

When was the last time you went to the grocery store? Back in early March. Prior to this quarantine/lockdown, I went with my mom twice a month. Since all that began, she’s just been going. We’ve been using the online order thing. What way would you like to die when it’s your time? Peacefully.

What are you most afraid of in the world? Death, diseases, violence, losing loved ones... Have you ever been caving? No.

Do you do well in math related things? Noooo. Me and math never got along.

What is your favorite fruit? Bananas. 

If you had to choose, which sibling would you live with? My younger brother and I already live in the same house.

Do you have any tattoos? Nope.

Are you planning on getting any in the near future? No.

When was your last date? Four years ago.

When did you get Facebook? Sometime in 2008.

What was your first pet’s name? Buster.

Are you good when it comes to computer issues? Uhh, depends what the issue is. If it involves the hardware itself then no.

Are there any people at your job who absolutely hates you? No job.

What was the last book you read? Don’t Tell by Willow Rose. I’m just starting, The Girl and the Hunt by AJ Rivers, which is the 6th book in a series.

Have you ever read any books in one day? Yeah, several.

What was the last thing you bought? A couple shirts and masks from Young and Reckless. The masks are black and say, “Keep your distance.” The shirts are black and say that as well in tiny font on the upper right side and on the back it says, “Thank you for staying away” in big font. I got one for my mom as well because it seemed like the perfect shirt for her to wear to work lol.

What are your plans for tomorrow? Nothing out of the ordinary.

Is there any jewelry you wear constantly? Nope. 

Are your fingernails painted at the moment? Nope.

Do you prefer cool, warm or neutral colors? >> I like a variety of colours for different reasons. <<<

Have you ever taken art classes? Just an art history class in college.

What’s the most boring movie you’ve ever seen? Hmm. I’m blanking.  Do you know how to work a cash register? I’ve never used one.

Fact or fiction novels? I’m more of a fiction gal.

Have you ever suffered from depression? Yeah, it’s been an ongoing battle for as long as I can remember, but these past few years have most definitely been the worst. Depression won.

Do you think you’re a clingy person? I can be when it comes to my mom. 

Do you enjoy kisses on the cheek? Uhh depending on who it’s from.

Have you ever been in a physical fight before? No.

How often would you say you disagree with your parents? We definitely have our disagreements, but I don’t know how often I’d say they are. A lot of them are about the same things.

What color shirt did you wear yesterday? >> Black.

Do you have a job? If so, do you like it? Nope.

Have you ever been called a slut before? I’ve had friends say it as a joke.

What’s something you’ve been craving? A day at the beach. D:

Have you ever slept with your window open? Yeah.

Can you play violin? I took lessons in 4th grade, but I didn’t enjoy it. Just wasn’t my thing. I stuck it out for the whole year, though.

What was the last desert you had? Brownies.

Have you ever had a wild animal as a pet? No.

Do you know anyone you talk to on Facebook but won’t talk to in person? No.

What color are your mother’s eyes? Brown.

Do you have a best friend? If so, how long have you been best friends? All 30 years of my life.

Do you cry easily? Yeah. Somedays I’m just on the verge of tears all day and anything can set it off. 

Have you ever been into a court room? I think during a field trip in elementary school.

How many necklaces would you say you own? Hmm. Maybe five.

Do you plan on being strict towards your children? I plan on not having children. I’m going to be 31 soon and feel strongly about not having children and I just don’t see something super drastic happening that makes me change my mind. But I’d be even older if something drastic did happen, so probably not even then. I’m meant to have doggos. (:

Do you own any tie-dye shirts? Yeah, a few.

What would you say is your favorite day of the week? They’re all the same for me, really.

Do you ever wear lipstick? I haven’t in a long time.

Do you own a pool? Nope.

Do you have a Tumblr account? Never heard of it.

Would you say you’re overweight? No. I’m actually too underweight.

How many colors are in your hair? Well, it’s mostly red, but my roots are starting to grow out. It’s not too bad, yet.

Do you flirt with a lot of people? I’m not a flirtatious person in general. If I flirt, it’s with someone I’m interested in and have been talking to. I don’t flirt with everyone or with people I don’t know.

How many bank accounts do you have? Just one.

Have you ever been falsely accused of starting drama? Yes.

How old are you? 30.

Do you attend church regularly? Not physically, but a local church uploads their service every Sunday to watch or listen to and I’ve been watching that even before the lockdown/quarantine. Since then, they’ve been live streaming since they can’t meet in person.

Have you ever found a song that describes your whole life? There’s a lot of songs where the lyrics just speak to me as they say and I really relate to them.

What time did you wake up this morning? I haven’t gone to bed, yet, but I assume I’ll get up sometime between 1 and 3 since that’s how it’s been the past few months.

What time do you plan on waking up tomorrow morning? ^^^

What kind of car do you drive? I don’t drive.

What kind of car would you like to have? Not something I’ve given much thought.

Have you ever been to Dairy Queen? If so, what’s your favorite thing to eat from there? Not since I was a kid. I remember liking the blizzard things.

How old did you turn on your last birthday? This is just another way of asking how old I am, which you already asked me.

Ever felt like falling apart? Oh yes. I’ve felt like I’ve fallen apart and like I’m going to fall apart, just barely hanging on. I’m always just trying to keep it together. I’m like Humpty Dumpty who couldn’t quite be put back together again.

Have you ever been in an ambulance? Yes.

Do you tend to worry a lot? Yepppp.

How old were you when you lost your first tooth? Like 6, I think.

Do you remember your first time on the internet? It was when I was 9 or 10.

Which website do you email from? Yahoo.

Do you enjoy receiving souvenirs? Sure. I love getting them myself when on vacation and I’d certainly appreciate if someone brought me something from theirs.

Do you get angry with people easily? Not angry, but irritated and frustrated. 

Do a lot of people dislike you or is it the other way around? I feel like I’m just not even on the radar for most people.

Have you ever had the flu? Yes.

What about strep throat? Yes. It’s been a longggg time, though.

Have you ever been to a psychologist? No, but I need to.

What’s the worst part about school? For me it was that I just got so overwhelmed and stressed out so easily.

Do you normally have a lot of homework, if you’re still in school?

When was your last vacation? Back in early February. I can’t believe that even happened this year because quarantine/lockdown has felt like 84 years.

Would you ever consider going on a cruise? I’ve thought about it and they do sound fun, but... I don’t think I could.

What did you last buy from the store? A few Starbucks Doubleshot energy drinks.

Would you say you enjoy being single or in a relationship more? All I really know is being single, so I can’t really say for sure. I do miss being interested in someone and talking to someone in that way, though, and the very little experience I do have with dating. It’s best for me to be single, though.

Do you try to stay busy a lot? I spend my days with my usual go-to distractions. I wouldn’t call that keeping busy, though. I don’t feel like spending all day on various social media platforms, watching YouTube and TV, reading, playing Animal Crossing, and lounging is “busy” if that makes sense. I think of productivity when I think about keeping busy. To me the things I do are just distractions and things to pass the time. Just something to do, ya know? *shrug*

What’s your favorite quote? “Blah.” ha.

Do you lie a lot? I’d be lying if I said I never lie, but I’m not a pathological liar. 

Do you still act childish most of the time? I sure can be stubborn, moody, and whiny like one.

Did you ever enjoy gym class? Nope.

What is your biggest insecurity? I have a lot of insecurities. 

Have you ever painted a room alone? Nope. Or at all.

Speaking of which, when did you last paint your room? Never.

What’s for dinner tonight? I don’t know, it’s only 3 in the morning.

Do you ever drink alcohol? Nope.

Have you ever had a terrible hangover? Ugh, yes.

Do you ever get migraines? No, but I get terrible tension headaches.

Do you know how to garden? I don’t do any gardening. Not my thing.

What was the last thing you plugged into an outlet? The egg cooker thing to make hard boiled eggs.

Do people consider you to be a funny person? I have my moments.

Do you have any bad habits? Oh do I ever.

Do you like children? If not, why is this? Sure, in small doses. haha.

What is your favorite snack? Deviled eggs. Super random, but they make a delicious snack.

Do you own any gaming systems? I have a Nintendo Switch. I use my brother’s PS4 to access stuff like Netflix or watch DVDs in the living room.

How old were your parents when they had you? Early and mid 20s.

Is there a big age difference between you and the person you like? There’s no such person, currently.

Do you trashtalk people a lot? Nah, just myself.

What is the most amusing thing on the internet, in your opinion? TikTok has been pretty amusing.

Does the future excite you or scare you? It terrifies me.

Have you ever been to Disney World? If so, how many times have you been? No.

Do you try to spend a lot of time with family? I spend a lot of time with my immediate family. We’re very close, but we also live together so we’re able to do so. I don’t see my extended family very often, and not at all since the quarantine/lockdown.

How often do you shower? Every couple of days.

What would you say is your favorite genre of music? I like a variety of music.

Do you need to clean your bedroom? It could use a little straightening up.

What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life? I don’t know. I don’t want to keep going on like I have been the past few years... 

Do you enjoy Chinese food? I like some. I haven’t had any in quite awhile, though. I’ve actually been really wanting potstickers.

Do you smile a lot? *shrug* I give a lot of half smiles.

What is your favorite movie from the nineties? That’s tough. I love a lot about the 90s.

Which decade were you born in? The 80s, albeit halfway through the last year of the decade. 

Are you good at giving advice to people? I think I used to be. Not now.

How many huge secrets do you have? Wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe I have a lot. Maybe I have none. Like the Tootsie Pop owl says, “the world may never know.” Oooh, I’m so ~mysterious.

How many people know these secrets?

How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Once.

Do you ever floss? Once in awhile, but no not usually. 

Have you ever been in a long-term relationship? No.

Ever considered suicide? If so, did you try to commit suicide? Yes. No. Is there anyone out there who makes you feel completely useless? No, I do that to myself.

Do you like texting or calling people more? Text. I don’t like talking on the phone. I don’t a lot of texting either, though.

What’s your favorite band? Linkin Park will always be one of them.

Do you have a lot of friends? I don’t have any friends.

Have you ever painted something and been impressed by it? I don’t paint.

Would you rather go out to eat or stay in? Oh, I’m not going out to eat anywhere anytime soon. I don’t care if dine in is slowly becoming an option again. Things are starting to open up again in phases, but please don’t mistake that to mean we’re in the clear and it’s perfectly safe to do so. We’re still very much in the midst of this pandemic. Please don’t be lax about your outings or start going all over the place. 

When did you last babysit, if ever? Not since my brother and a couple of my cousins were kids. They’re all adults now. 

Do you have any younger siblings? Yep, just mentioned my younger brother.

Have you ever thought of someone as useless? I don’t think of others that way, just myself.

Have you ever considered bleaching your hair? Yes and I do.

Do you drink vitamin water? I was super into Vitamin Water back when I was in high school. I haven’t had any in quite a long time.

Do you ever straighten your hair? It’s been a few years since I’ve straightened it myself, but when I go to get my hair done the lady who does my hair straightens it.

What’s the best way to end a conversation? Uhhh it depends? 

Are there any old movies you absolutely love? Yeah, there’s several.

Have you ever had a Big Mac before? Many times. I’ll get a craving for one every now and then.

Do you think you attract the opposite sex at a reasonable rate? Haaaaa no, not at all.

Where is your favorite place to travel? Beachy places.

What is your goal for the next few months? Getting through the summer somehow. Next week we’re having a few triple digit weather days.... it’s not even summer, yet. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I can’t even escape to the beach this summer. D:

Can you count to ten in another language other than your own? Sí, en Español.

Do you own a lot of shoes? A few pairs.

What is your favorite season and why? Fall and winter. I just love everything about it--the cold weather, the holidays, the smells, the decor, and just the coziness of it.

Does photography interest you at all? >> Not really. I like looking at photographs other people have taken, though. <<< Yeah, it interests me in that way but I don’t have any interest in taking up photography myself.

Have you ever played on a sports team before? If you have, what was that sport and when? Nope.

Have you ever filed a lawsuit on someone? No.

Do you think you’re a good singer? Nope, I know I’m not. Doesn’t mean I don’t do it anyway at home to myself, though. 

Would you rather wear jeans or sweatpants? I’ve only been wearing leggings the past few years.

Do you think you have a good sense of style? I like what I wear, which is all that matters.

Do you enjoy reading often? Yes, I love reading.

Ever had food-poisoning before? Yes. Not fun.

Where did you last eat dinner at? We got Wingstop takeout last night if that counts. I haven’t physically been out to eat in months, though.

Have you ever shot a gun before? Yes, once. I went to a shooting range with friends and learned how to hold and shoot one. I don’t know what type it was exactly, but it was a small handheld. It actually made me quite anxious doing so and even just being in that environment, so yeah it was just that one time. 

[aion-rsa]

Watchmen Episode 9 Easter Eggs Explained

https://ift.tt/2YSXMq4

The big finale of HBO's Watchmen comes together in episode 9! Here's all the references to the book we were able to catch.

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This article contains Watchmen spoilers.

Watchmen episode 9 “See How They Fly” wraps it all up. And you’d think that after nine time-hopping episodes they might be ready to wrap up all of their homages and references to the original book. You would be wrong. 

But not everything comes from the book. The episode’s title, “See how they fly” is a lyric from The Beatles’ psychedelic masterpiece “I Am The Walrus” which features the sinister/joyful (and Watchmen-relevant) refrain of “I am the eggman.” Now, with that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

LADY TRIEU

- We’re once again back on Nov. 1, 1985...this time to witness the conception of Lady Trieu. Her mother, Bian (who in the future Lady Trieu will clone and raise as her daughter) was one of Veidt’s Vietnamese employees who kept his fortress of solitude, Karnak, running. The verse she recites is apparently from folklore about a Lady Trieu who lived during the third century. 

Incidentally, this is the most we’ve seen of the inner workings of Karnak, including in the book, where we only saw TWO employees. Does this mean he murdered ALL of these people, too? That is dark as fuck.

read more: Complete Watchmen Timeline Explained

- Lady Trieu is sperm sample 2346. That’s 23 x 2. It could very well be a reference to the “23 enigma,” an almost cult-like belief in the significance of the number 23. It was popularized by counterculture icons like William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson. 

- The fact that Bian crowns her insemination with “Fuck you, Ozymandias” is interesting. Is Veidt, like Dr. Manhattan, a symbol of American imperialism in Vietnam? Pretty likely, right?

- In 2008, when Lady Trieu confronts Adrian Veidt and refers to him as “the smartest man in the world” she’s using the nickname that had been given to Ozymandias by the press. Trieu is, of course, “the smartest woman in the world.”

ADRIAN VEIDT

- This is the filming of the “confession/congratulations” video that Wade Tillman was shown by Joe Keene back in episode 5. It will be presented to Robert Redford on the day he is inaugurated as President on January 21, 1993. You can see the giant squid in the tank behind Veidt while he is recording the message to President Redford, by the way.

- “Untie knot” is the password prompt on Veidt’s old computer. “Untie knot” refers to the Gordian Knot, which Alexander the Great famously solved with his sword. The password is “Rameses II” just like in the book. 

- That’s a portrait of Alexander the Great in Veidt’s office, but as of yet I’ve been unable to identify it.

- We learn in this episode that Veidt has “never given himself to a woman.” The fact that he specifically mentions women and not men could possibly echo Rorschach’s observation about him in the book, that Veidt is “possibly homosexual.”  

- Based on the five year timeline laid out by Lady Trieu here, it would appear that Veidt spelled out “Save me Daughter” on the surface of Europa with the corpses of his servants in 2013.

read more: Watchmen Finale Explained

- Veidt’s line about achieving “everything” having “started from nothing” is a quote from the book, during the chapter when he is recounting his own origin story.

- Veidt catches the bullet from the Game Warden as he did in the comic when Laurie tried shooting him in Karnak.

- Veidt’s philosophy that “masks make men true” seems to echo Oscar Wilde’s “give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth” aphorism. This is refuted later in the episode by Will Reeves who feels quite the opposite about masks.

- “Palestine has become a widow for Egypt.” Veidt is quoting the Merneptah Stele, an ancient inscription detailing the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah’s victories. He ends with “the end is nigh,” which is generally Biblical in nature, but refers in this context specifically to the sign that Rorschach, in his identity of Walter Kovacs, used to carry around in the book.

DOCTOR MANHATTAN

- Joe Keene’s high-waisted undies are a mirror of the ones Dr. Manhattan wore through chunks of his career, before he decided to abandon clothing entirely.

- Lady Trieu refers to Dr. Manhattan as “the big blue cheese.” This is a surprisingly playful reference to Shazam, whose enemy Dr. Sivana routinely calls him a “big red cheese.” Incidentally, Lady Trieu does have a tendency to dress like the Sivana of the comics, who favors all white outfits.

- The 7th Kavalry discovered the existence of Dr. Manhattan on the White Night because Cal teleported “Mike” to Gila Flats, which was the place where Jon Osterman became Dr. Manhattan.

- Laurie refers once again to the thermodynamic miracle, a term taught to her by Jon the day that she discovered that her father was in fact Edward Blake.

- Jon has remained somewhat disoriented since he was “returned” by Angela. Throughout, we see him slipping into the past, specifically into moments from the book. 

- “Janey, are you cold? I can raise the temperature” refers to a Christmas in 1959, the first Jon spent as Dr. Manhattan, when he was still with his first love, Janey Slater. Her “chill” was because she was getting a little scared of Jon and his increasingly distant humanity.

- “There is no situation in Afghanistan requiring my attention,” comes from the final moments of Jon’s talk show appearance in October of 1985, moments before he left Earth for Mars.

LOOKING GLASS

- “Mirror Guy? “It’s Looking Glass” has become the best ongoing joke of this entire series. And as it turns out, Laurie and Wade have more in common than they thought. Wade has a tendency to puke after experiencing Dr. Manhattan’s teleportation, a trait he shares with Laurie.

RORSCHACH

When Angela is interrogating a member of the 7th Kavalry, she starts breaking his fingers, before threatening to move on to other parts of his anatomy. That was a favorite technique of Rorschach to extract information.

HOODED JUSTICE

Will Reeves uses some comic book speak by referring to the Tulsa Race Massacre as “my origin story.” He also says “before my world ended,” both an allusion to the Tulsa/Krypton parallels we have tracked elsewhere in these guides and the way Batman is fond of referring to the night his parents died. Both are appropriate.

NITE OWL

Nite Owl’s old ship, ARCHIE (hence Veidt’s “it’s been a hoot”) is still in Karnak after freezing up shortly after transporting Dan and Rorschach there to confront Veidt on Nov. 1, 1985. Wade would indeed know how to fly it since Dan later licensed his technology to police departments under the umbrella of a company called Merlincorps.

Incidentally, while Dan was only ever alluded to throughout this season, if we do indeed get a Watchmen season 2, then we have to figure he’ll show up to testify at Veidt’s trial.

We wrote more about Nite Owl here.

ANGELA ABAR

Is Angela now a godlike being who can walk on water after consuming that mysterious egg? Well, during their first meeting 10 years ago, Dr. Manhattan did tell her that he could “theoretically” transmit his powers into organic material for someone else to consume. And he DID want her to see him walking on water. But it looks like we may never know for sure.

read more: The Unanswered Questions of the Watchmen Finale

But that ambiguous ending is meant to mirror the final panel of the book, where it was unclear whether the bumbling intern at the offices of the New Frontiersman would reach for Rorschach’s Journal from “the crank pile” for possible publication.

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

- “As if some cowboy actor could ever become president.” It worked for Ronald Reagan!

- When Lady Trieu tells Adrian Veidt that he “stopped the clock” she’s referring to the Doomsday Clock, which was at one minute to midnight before the squid massacre prevented World War III.

- We once again get Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube Waltz" on Europa, this time as Lady Trieu's spacecraft lands. The 2001: A Space Odyssey parallels are real, considering that film dealt with a mysterious Monolith appearing on the surface of Europa.

- At the newsstand, there’s a headline that says “Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings Drag On” for John Grisham. This has become something of a running joke on the show since episode 3.

- There’s also a New Frontiersman headline that says “Four Wounded in Saigon Burning” indicating that unrest in Vietnam continues.

- The gentleman in the wheelchair who turns up is Senator Joe Keene, Sr. the man who outlawed masked vigilantes in the first place in the book.

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.

Read and download the Den of Geek Lost in Space Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature

Books

Mike Cecchini

Dec 15, 2019

Watchmen

HBO

from Books https://ift.tt/2LYQT1z

[likeathunderbolt]

jasmine; what mythical creature do you wish actually existed? the fée, I'd go live with them in the forest and dedicate my life to practicing supernatural hijinks and fucking shit up for the humans.

lavender; soundcloud or vinyls? I suppose soundcloud gives artists an easier method of sharing with the world.

primrose; what book does everyone right now need to read? The Cooking Gene by Michael W Twitty.

lunar mist; do you like wearing other people’s shirts/jackets? They're always too small for me because I am a frost giant.

bird of paradise; what was the best thing that happened to you this month? I went to see one of my all time favourite artists with one of my oldest friends. 

gardenia; what’s a promise you’ve recently made to yourself? To really mean it this time.

lion’s fairytale; would you rather be the sky, the ocean or the forests? The Ocean.

whirling butterflies; would you kiss the last person you kissed again? Sure, why not?

marmalade skies; do you plan your outfits? Not really, I just make sure my clothes are washed and ironed.

apricot drift; how do you feel right now? Gross from eating too much junk food.

everlasting daisy; what’s the last dream you remember having? My friends at a barbecue and for some reason everyone had superpowers but it was completely normal and no big deal so we just had this full on X-Men cook out.

queen’s cup; what are you craving right now? Water and a clear head.

lavender dream; turn ons/offs? On: Confidence, inner peace, knowing what you want. Off: Control, agendas, “white” lies. 

water lilly; when was the last time you cried? why? I was given a gift and a note both of which were very very heartfelt, referencing years’ worth of actions I had no idea had left such an impact.

lily of the valley; did the one person who hurt you most in your life apologize? The person who hurt me most is me, being self sabotaging fool, I practice my apology every day by trying to be better.

winterberry; do you bite or lick your ice cream? Lick, biting ice cream sounds very odd to me.

honey perfume; favourite movie ever? I love the Ghibli films, ハウルの動く城, 千と千尋の神隠し, 魔女の宅急便, 風の谷のナウシカ, etc.

desert rose; do you like yourself? I'm working on it.

snapdragon; have you ever met or seen in person a celebrity? I'm not sure if this counts but I had lunch with Carla Bruni once, and twice I shared a fruitcake with Kofi Annan.

night owl; how many countries have you visited? I have actually genuinely lost count and don't want to miss anyone out.

heliotrope; have you ever been in a castle? I'm British, we can't move for castles.

creams and sky; what’s the craziest/bravest thing you’ve done? Moved to Toulouse on my own? Decided to actually look at myself and how much I was contributing to my own unhappiness? Trying to take responsibility for my self and be a better human?

lantana; what’s on your mind right now? I left my peppermint tea at work but water was a close second anyway.

pumpkin patch; what’s your zodiac sign? Earth sign, Taurus.

tulip; name 5 facts about yourself. 1. I love water; I'm a water baby, island child. Water is my favourite beverage, swimming is my favourite exercise, I love lakes, rivers, streams seas, oceans and waterfalls. Rainy days make me feel calm. Water is in my soul. 2. I love cooking; when I was a wee child my nan had a lodger from Hong Kong who was a chef, and he used to let me "help" him in the kitchen. So I grew up learning how to cook authentic HK/Cantonese cuisine. He actually runs a quite successful restaurant now too. 3. My first job was a Junior Librarian in a Grade 1 listed building; it had a variety of secret passageways and hidden rooms that I still think about a lot. Taking a hidden staircase up to a secret turret to repair books in the dusty sunlight is soul therapy. 4. I'm quite ambiverted; almost painfully shy with people I don't know very well, especially if I'm not feeling very confident that day. I have known this shyness to be mistaken for rudeness on occasion which has spurred me on to be more open a friendly even when I feel vulnerable, which has gone a long way to helping deal with the shyness. 5. As of the day after my birthday this year, I am now an uncle.

daphne; do you believe in karma? Yes, karma or the karmic rose by any other name. queen of the meadow; ever been in love? With humanity, life, the future.

wisteria; whom do you admire and why? Kind people. Anyone who has kept a warm heart through the hard times.

angel’s face; what was your favourite bedtime story as a child? The Jolly Witch.

remember me; did you make someone laugh today? My cats made me laugh, not too sure if I returned the favour just yet.

iris; do you believe in ghosts? Yes, or something of the sort we don't fully understand.

lilac; if you could go back in time which time period would you visit? Pre-Roman Britain.

caramel kisses; would you want to live forever? why/why not? No, I want to eventually move on.

primula; what makes you sad? Missed opportunities, being unable to help, misunderstandings, injustice.

rain lily; was today typical? why/why not? Yes and no, I spent a lazy Sunday with my family playing games so it was fun, but a typical day usually involved more work, working out, etc.

queen anne’s lace; who do you trust the most? My loved ones.

lady’s slipper; what did you have for breakfast today? Boiled rice with shredded veg & chilli sauce.

forget me not; do you have any regrets looking back in your life? I would like to have learnt certain lessons sooner and I am sorry for upsetting people.

lunaria; what’s your favourite fictional universe? I love so many, I think Tolkien's Middle Earth just  wins it for me though, I have so many great memories both reading alone and playing or discussing with friends as a child, a teen and even now.

violet; favourite telly show? Of all time: I have a soft spot for the OC in all its ridiculous glory.  Of the last year or so: Ugly Delicious. Honorary mentions: Supernatural, Springwatch, Summerwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch.

sunflower; share a favourite quote. Again, so many: "You're as good as you reciprocate." from Light's Everybody Breaks A Glass. "To be rather than to seem." is also one that means a lot to me, I think the good people of North Carolina may agree with me on that one too.

snowdrop; what does your ideal day look like? Waking up in a bright, comfy room, good hearty breakfast, swimming, spending time with loved ones, working on passion projects, cooking for everyone, relaxing under the stars.

tiger lily; do you have any hobbies? Swimming, cooking, reading, yoga, painting, writing, and outdoor activities. I love skating either board or blades and ju jitsu too, but I can't really do impact stuff anymore.

peony; share a small random book passage that means something to you. So many from Terry Crews Manhood and Anna Akana's So Much I Want to Tell You. I don't have the energy to go get them and type them out though because it would take me half an hour to even pick which passage to use. I'm already thinking of more books that mean a great deal to me.

tea rose; what’s something you always wanted to do but were too scared? I really wanted to move to Japan for a while to be with my friends, who are from Osaka, I went as far as to get necessary qualifications, studied Japanese and secured a job before I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that meant I needed ongoing treatment at home, I was terrified of moving to Japan because it is literally the other side of Eurasia but once the opportunity was taken away after all that work, I was devastated. I always imagined that doing these things that scare me would make me a better person and now I'm scared I'll never have a chance to right that missed opportunity.

honeysuckle; do you usually date people your age or older/younger? I operate on the 5 year rule usually; no older or younger than fiver years from my age, but I suppose I'd waive that for the right person?

sweet pea; who means the world to you? why? My loved ones, because friends really are the family you choose and there is no greater blessing than having friends who are your family and family who are truly your friends.

love in the mist; best books you’ve ever read? Again, too many, off the top of my head: Mineko Iwasaki's Geisha of Gion, Jung Chang's Wild Swans, Anhua Gao's On the Edge of the Sky, Jo Rowlings Harry Potter series, Tolkien's Entire works, particularly Beren and Lúthien. I also really love Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I also read Nigella's cookbooks like novels. I literally just sit and read them. I could write whole books on books I love and why.

foxglove; who is your favourite cartoon character? The entire cast of Pokémon is my childhood.

magnolia; coffee or tea? Tea please.

crown imperial; would you rather be extremely rich or extremely loved? Love is richness.

snowflake; are you a dog or a cat person? Why is the word or in this sentence? Unless your allergic or afraid I don't trust people who don't like animals.

bell flower; what is your biggest addiction? Junk food. Easily.

cosmos; do you ever think about the galaxy? It fascinates me endlessly, I love watching Professor Brian Cox.

moonflower; what’s your favourite colour? Brown, blue and orange.

freesia; do you have a good relationship with your parents and siblings? why/why not? I think we communicate well and they are some of my best friends.

sundrop; are you a morning or a night person? Learning to be a morning person, definitely still more of a night person. I was born with starlight in my eyes and that was my first love.

poppy; have you ever dealt with a mental illness? Yes, from both a point of view of concern for loved ones and from the point of view of not even realising how bad my own mental health was. If you want to talk about mental health either yours or that of a loved one, no matter who you are please feel free to reach out. I'm here.

clover; how would your friends describe you? You'd have to ask them, but I really hope they'd say kind.

dandelion; do you consider yourself and extrovert or an introvert? I'm an introvert that has learnt to be ambiverted.

lilly; what’s something you love watching/reading but you are too embarrassed to admit you do? That's hard, I don't really feel ashamed of things like that anymore. Two people I feel are criticised a lot, sometimes rightly so, but who I still love because I'm aware humans, including myself, are fallible (and those throwing the stones are invariably living in glass houses) are Taylor Swift and Jo Rowling.

anemone; describe yourself in 3 words. Striving for better.

lotus; best memory as a child? Any time I was having fun with my loved ones.

angelonia; what is your eye and hair colour? Blue and a really dark auburn.

dahlia; do you like crystals? They're pretty I suppose? And they feel nice and cool.

buttercup; if you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? More love and compassion.

baby’s breath; what’s your Hogwarts house? Slytherin according to Pottermore. My friends had me pegged as a Ravenclaw in the pre Pottermore days.

calendula; biggest pet peeve? When people give it that "Gotcha!" thing as  though they're irrefutably in the right, but they're still completely wrong and then they proceed to act like you just can't let an argument go, when all you are doing is refusing to be walked all over.

blanker flower; would you rather go to a cocktail party with your best friends or stay home and read a book/watch a movie with your pet? Both of these sound like great nights, I'd say the latter most of the time and the former for a change every now and then. Friday night I didn’t get home until 2am I wound down by sitting in bed with my cats watching The X-Files and eating chicken nuggets.

blazing star; share a secret. If I did, it wouldn't be a secret.

carnation; would you rather live longer or happier? Happier. Happiness is such and important thing to share.

petunia; who’s story is your biggest inspiration in life? why? So many people; I really admire my loved one because I know their struggles and still see first hand their kindness and compassion every single day.

bluebell; do you wear glasses? I do not.

nymphea; forest or river? I love both but I'll go for river.

orchid; do you like exercise? Exercise releases endorphins, for which I am very grateful.

pansy; do you like poetry? Poetry is great. I love it.

morning glory; any special talent that you have? You mean other than eating two entire tubes of pringles to myself in a single day? I can make icing flowers from scratch and bake a cake to put them on, thank to my nan.

[scrawnydutchman]

Rick and Morty Season 3 Ranked Worst to Best (Spoilers)

Well friends, the long awaited Season 3 of the hit show Rick and Morty has come to a close. It will not be time again to get schwifty until Season 4 hits. When will it hit? Who knows? But do Mr. Poopy Butthole a favour and don’t waste your life waiting for it like you did waiting for Season 3. Anyways, now that the third season has ended, what did I think overall? Well, to be honest . . . it was very hit and miss. It doesn’t feel right to call any of these episodes bad, because bad by Rick and Morty standards is truthfully still leagues above the vast majority of television right now. But some episodes ARE undeniably stronger than others, and while Season 3 was no doubt a joy ride it DID end up being a lot more bittersweet than previous seasons. Seeing as there are 10 episodes altogether, I felt it was appropriate to rank these episodes from worst to best. This is purely my opinion; if you disagree with this list it’s totally fine. If you enjoyed the lower ranked episodes I’m glad you did, if you think other episodes are overrated that’s fair enough. Alright, enough padding, let’s get into it!

10. The Rickchurian Mortydate (The Finale)

You know, seeing as this is the note the season goes out on, it’s a damn shame how underwhelming it is. I still stand by that by Rick and Morty standards the worst episode is still leagues above most television, but man of man does this episode feel like a misfire for multiple reasons. For one, the whole episode feels like it’s on fast forward. Something about the pacing is incredibly off; there’s no time to process any of the still clever one liners. That’s probably due to all the shit they shove into this episode that isn’t handled nearly as gracefully as other entries in this list. While we’re on the subject, this episode feels the need to throw TONS of shit at you and just go in any random direction with no clear reason as to why. This series has a reputation for deliberately subverting expectations, but up until this point it’s done so in a way that feels logical and just as right as any presumptions we as the audience may have had. It has a Minecraft reference in it. . . I guess . . . but then it just immediately dismisses it by saying South Park did it. If they’re trying to avoid doing stuff that’s already been done then why even bring it up? It’s just misplaced randomness and not particularly clever. What’s most disappointing about this episode though is the fact that it basically undid everything Season 3 established. Beth and Jerry are back together, Beth literally states that the 4th Season will be like Season 1 but more streamlined (I thought forth wall breaking was Rick’s thing?), and the storytelling possibilities about Beth’s clone choice are pretty much thrown right out the window, so you can just disregard the fan theory I wrote (or maybe they’re not? IDK that whole aspect was so rushed and confusing). The finale had some great jokes (like Rick being afraid of pirates got a chuckle out of me) and it has a good amount of outrageousness, but more than a concise and tight episode this feels like a constant throwing of shit at the wall to see what sticks, and sadly the wall is clean for the most part. All well. Maybe Season 4 will do great things as a result of this setup and I’ll think differently about this episode in retrospect. Until then, it’s a pretty shallow conclusion.

9. The ABCS of Beth (Episode 9)

Before anyone calls it out on me, the rest of this list is NOT in order of chronological release of episode in reverse. ANYWAYS, Before the finale I felt this was the weakest entry in the series. My biggest issue with it is how on the nose all of the character analysis is. This may be the least thematically subtle episode in a series that involves a character turning into a Pickle with a family therapy subplot. It even goes as far as having Beth summarize the plot of what happened to Tommy like she was reciting a book report. And then when Tommy describes what he’s been up to via disturbing childrens play it’s not any information we didn’t already know. Then you have the subplot of Jerry being called out for being a closeted racist and sexist, ALSO verbally explained by Summer. This episode is a bad case of tell-don’t-show, which is a mentality you ABSOLUTELY want to avoid when you make a film or tv show. Being Rick and Morty it’s still got some good jokes (like the bit where Rick shows Beth’s old toys is hilarious) and the ending is nice and sweet (as well as the only hint of subtlety throughout the whole ride) but beyond that it’s basically just characters giving their own synopsis so you don’t have to think about it and a hard reliance on incest and cannabilism humor. 

8. Rickmancing the Stone (Episode 2)

Rick and Morty does Mad Max?? Based on premise alone you would think this would be a memorable ride of absolute mayhem, not unlike the franchise it homages. But that’s the real and unfortunate irony about this entry . . . it’s probably the most forgettable episode of the bunch. I remember Morty getting a huge muscular arm and Rick helping Morty drown a guy . . . that was funny. I remember Summer getting involved with a deadbeat apocalypse survivor . . . that was . . . . funny? I remember Jerry getting gusts of wind muttering “loser” to him. All of it is . . . not very impactful if I’m honest. Some might argue it’s memorability is a result of it being one of the earliest episodes in the season, but in contrast to it the premiere happened way sooner and it had some of the most memorable events of the whole series. Truthfully if any episode of the series was supposed to have the crazy fast pacing of the finale, I think it should have been this one. This is the perfect setup to just throw a bunch of crazy insane and violent shit at the viewers for no rhyme or reason. It does that SOMETIMES but not nearly enough. By the end it just becomes super mundane and downplayed. I get that’s supposed to be the joke because it’s meant to be a subversion of Mad Max, but the joke unfortunately doesn’t pay off that well. 

7. Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender (Episode 4)

Apparently this is series Co-Creator Dan Harmon’s least favorite episode according to some leaked audio footage. Personally I like this episode overall for a multitude of reasons (though they may be largely due to my biases as both an animator and superhero fan). For one, this may be the most beautifully animated and stylized entry in the season. The power effects are cool, the designs and overall concepts of the Vindicators are nice, it has some creative visuals and nice use of colour. Visually speaking the most mindblowing thing about this episode is Million Ants. The way he moves, the way he morphs into different shapes, the way his model is constantly shifting and morphing and how he’s very clearly hand drawn frame by frame (most of the time at least). Million Ants alone may be the best animation the show has ever done. The episode also has the bit about Morty thinking Rick is finally confessing that he loves him, only to find Rick meant to make that message for Noob Noob, which is easily the hardest I ever laughed the entire season (INCLUDING the Szechuan sauce bit). But the episode isn’t without it’s problems sadly. I actually watched a pretty good video analyzing why this episode isn’t as strong as others, and it pointed out that it goes against Dan Harmon’s treasured “Hero’s Journey” story arc, by having Morty’s change of heart about the Vindicators happen way too quickly. I’ll link to the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQWTbLWYxI

It also has the unfortunate handicap of having the heroes be too difficult to like right out the gate, as we are only merely told of their heroic feats rather than shown them. Once again, we’re told what to think verbally by the main characters. Also, the dabbing at the end was beyond cringeworthy. In fact, come to think of it, there are a LOT of moments in this season that are like that, where it’s just a reference to something topical that sticks out like a sore thumb. The dabbing, the Minecraft bit, Beth saying “fake news”. Is there someone on the Rick and Morty staff that insists there must be an arbitrarily shoehorned pop culture reference every episode? All well, that aside this is a solid episode IMO. Not the best, but solid.

6. Pickle Rick (Episode 3)

Ah yes, who could forget the most quoted and frequently referenced episode in the whole series, all because of one strange punchline? This episode is very likable for similar reasons to episode 4. It has very imaginative visuals and some of the best animation in the whole series, especially that fight scene with the rats. It’s a very clever, funny and action packed homage to Die Hard and other gun towing action films like it, and it’s got some of the funniest bits of dialogue and surreal humor in the season. Some people were turned off by the family therapy scenes, and yeah, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t carry the same issues of spelling out character synopsis that the other episodes have. But I felt they were still a nice subplot that make great stark contrast to the ongoing outrageousness of the main plot. The calming and soothing voice of Dr. Wong makes the intense gore of Pickle Rick’s fight stand out all the more in comparison. Plus I liked her little monologue at the end as I thought it was one of the few bits of verbal explanation in the show that was warranted and welcome. Not much else to say about this one. I’M PICKLE RIIIIIICK!!!

5. Morty’s Mind Blowers (Episode 8)

Alright, enough bitching about flaws. Let’s talk about the REAL shining moments in the series!! This episode is Season 3′s alternative to interdimensional cable. While I was initially pretty disappointed that this was their stand in, that sentiment was immediately put at ease when I was gift wrapped the funniest, most grotesque and most deliciously pessimistic clip show I’ve ever received in my life (thankfully it’s clips we never saw though). The episode is all about going through the memories Rick had removed from Morty’s mind, whether it’s because Morty begged him to or because it’s something Rick wanted removed, and like what you would think every clip is outrageous, surreal and gut wrenchingly dark. The bit about the dictator squirrels was great, the bit about the smudge on the lens is hilarious, we finally get to see a character dubbed by a fan who won a contest (great job btw) and the episode isn’t without it’s nice dosage of references to the past. It’s pretty fantastic and is just as entertaining as Interdimensional cable (that said, I DO want IC3 sometime in the future). After a whole season dealing with family drama, trust issues, loss in faith and other depressing themes, it’s nice to take a break and have an episode that’s a pure comedy from beginning to end.

4. The Rickshank Redemption (Season Premiere)

Here it is. The Season Premiere. The answer to the questions we’ve been holding onto for nearly 2 years after the finale to Season 2. It’s also the best April Fools day prank Adult Swim has ever pulled. Delaying Samurai Jack was WORTH IT!!! Like I said, this episode managed to answer the most tantalizing questions for us after the heartbreaking finale of Season 2. Not only did it do that, but it gave us the most hilarious and epic answer we could have possibly hoped for. You think Rick did everything he did to prove he really did love his family? You think the reason he is who he is is because he’s had to suffer the tragic fate of losing his family before? FUCK THAT!!! It was all an elaborate scheme to get back at every authority that ever did wrong by him. He rekt the intergalactic government, the Council of Ricks AND Jerry all in 20 minutes of pure hilarity and intense espionage. And best of all, he made up that shit about loving his family. HE JUST NEEDS THAT SZECHUAN SAUCE MORTY!! I said before that the Noob Noob bit is the hardest I ever laughed in the series, but the Szechuan sauce is a VERY close second. This was the absolute perfect way to kick off the season and to stoke our fires in anticipation for future episodes.

3. Rest and Ricklaxation (Episode 6)

Of all the entries to Season 3, this episode feels the most like Season 1. While the majority of Season 3 is some sort of switch up to the status quo where either Rick goes on an adventure with a different member of the family or Morty isn’t his usual worried or panicking self (and is notably turning into an unapologetic pessimist), this one goes back to the roots of the shows good ol’ fashion premise of Rick taking his timid grandson on a life changing, dream crushing adventure. Not only is it a refreshing back-to-basics episode with great morbid humor, but it actually has a very interesting and fresh commentary on what it means to be a good person, told in a more tongue-and-cheek way than other episodes have talked about their core themes. The episode is all about Rick and Morty removing their ‘toxicity’ (I.E. what they hate most about themselves) and their toxicity manifesting into negative unhealthy versions of them. The point the episode gets across though is that personality traits aren’t necessarily good or bad in all circumstances. Sometimes it’s good to be shy and timid and sometimes it’s good to be forceful and upfront. Sometimes it’s bad to be confident and it’s bad to be passive. The episodes point is that everybody has things about themselves they would rather not have but the truth is, every facet of our being is what makes us who we are and it isn’t actually healthy to go into any extreme. It’s a heartwarming message about self acceptance told in a hilarious, cruel and dark way that Rick and Morty always does. What’s not to love?

2. The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy (Episode 5)

This episode is beat for beat, pound for pound, consistently, the funniest episode of the whole season and QUITE POSSIBLY the whole show. It’s comedic writing and execution is right up there with The Rick’s Must be Crazy, which is my favorite episode of the show. It has SO many great lines, my favorite being “Momma’s coming, baby! Momma’s coming AND SHE CARES ABOUT YOUR TITTIES!”. It has great bits of dark humor with one of the most fucked up scenes in the show being when the kid unknowingly kills his sister for good. It has great fake outs like the gif you see above this paragraph. It’s just a consistent laugh riot. Throw that in with a great Attack on Titan homage and of course the sexy and sinister voice of Clancy Brown as the main antagonist (has he ever played a hero character in his whole career) and you got a badass entry to the show. Also, much like million ants or the pickle rick vs. rats fight, it features some of the most damn impressive animation in the show between the rollercoaster fight and the tripping balls scene. GOD what a good episode. This is in my top 3 of the whole show for sure.

1. The Ricklantis Mixup/Tales from the Citadel (Episode 7)

Any followers of my blog who have read my article “Why the Ricklantis Mixup should be awarded” could see this coming as the number one spot. But can you blame me?? This episode is a MASTERPIECE, not just by Rick and Morty Standards which are already super high, but for television in general. If you want to know my full thoughts on this episode, go back and read my article about it, because what I would type here doesn’t do it justice. The worldbuilding, the multiple perspectives, the likability of all the characters, the humor, the animation, the personality, the performance of nearly every character by Justin Roiland, the core themes of prejudice and societal norms, the storytelling leading up to THE MOST BADASS TWIST ENDING OF THE WHOLE SHOW. Everything about this episode is simply perfect. It’s mindblowing that this was achieved in 20 minutes. I’ve said before that The Rick’s Must be Crazy is my favorite episode of the show, but that’s in terms of very subjective variables. Objectively, this episode is the most brilliantly constructed and executed. If by some horrible tragedy all but one Rick and Morty episode had to be wiped from existence, to me this is the one that needs to survive.

So yeah. Season 3 was the most hit and miss of the show thus far. But I’d like to reiterate that I don’t think I can call any of these episodes bad. There’s something likable in all of them and it’s still some of the best entertainment you can find today. In spite of how nasty I may have come across earlier in the list, when this show misses, it only misses by a little. When it hits, BY GOD ALMIGHTY does it hit. All I can say to end this post is Season 4 cannot get here soon enough.

[thesummerstorms]

How do you imagine Darman reacting to what happened to Etain during her pregnancy? Because for me, Darman would be FURIOUS to know the mother of their child was threatened, banished to a situation that nearly led her to miscarry, and even forbidden to think of a name for the baby, not to mention everything else that went on...

I was sitting on this for, well, a very long time because I wasn’t sure how to reply. Just FYI, parts of this post are based on the canon of the actual novels, but a large part (mostly near the end) are written from my own perspective in the context of my Etain Lives verse.

It’s also very long (quite possibly more info than is called for, and I apologize for that), so beneath the cut I’ve broken the post into three pieces

What does Dar know, canonically? (And what reaction does he have?)

What doesn’t Dar know, canonically? (Why? Would he have ever learned in canon? How he might have reacted if he found out?)

What happens in a verse where Etain doesn’t die? (When and where Darman might learn, and what his reaction might be. This is entirely contextualized in my Etain Lives verse, which means some AU and headcanons are in play.)

While I know the original ask centers on how will he react, I kind of got caught up in figuring out what he does or doesn’t already know and why before I got there. And the end result is a rambling mess, so I apologize.

So what does Dar know, canonically?

So the interesting thing that I realized when I was going through and rereading/researching for this is that Darman does canonically know at least some of the story. Specifically, he knows that Kal a)prevented Etain from telling him about the baby and b) threatened to take the baby away from her entirely.

“Shab, no, son.” Skirata’s face was anguished and exhausted. “She adores you. It was me—I stopped her telling you. She wanted to, right from when she knew she was pregnant, but I threatened I’d take the kid away from her if she didn’t do as I said.”     **

Darman didn’t believe him. Skirata might have been a pitilessly hard man, no stranger to violence, but he was the kindest of fathers. He’d never have threatened Etain. 

“Don’t cover for her, Kal’buir.”

“I’m not. It’s true. Ask Ordo—he walked in on the row, and I’m not going to dress it up. I stopped her telling you, and that was wrong, whatever the circumstances.”

Dar’s initial response is disbelief that Kal would in any way be a threat to Etain- because he trusts and loves Kal, and expects that love and trust to carry over into Kal’s relationship with his significant other. That actually makes sense to me.

From there the conversation progresses into Darman’s anger that Kal is keeping things from him- first about his son and Etain, then about the larger web of things Kal is hiding from them- the cure research, the desertion plans, and all the other operations Kal is running against the Republic without telling them.  The combination of learning about Ko Sai and the revelation about Kad is what pushes Darman to beat the hell out of Skirata. Again, he’s going through crisis mode here because he’s realizing he can’t trust Kal. And that makes sense.

But what’s odd to me is that we never see him come back to that very first crime of Kal’s, that he threatened Etain, even after he’s moved past denial. After beating up Skirata, he seems eager to “forgive and move on”, and pretend that his anger was merely heat of the moment, which might have something to do with it, but…

It’s still weird in the context of Darman, who has been noted to be super protective of Etain, both emotionally and physically, long before they were even dating. He never brings it up with Etain (that we can see) or calls Kal out on the threats, or otherwise seems to be concerned with that detail. Perhaps it’s a matter of his underestimating exactly what threatened looked like in this case, being so overwhelmed by his loss of trust in Kal in general that he loses sight of it, or of not being mentally prepared to face it, but it is odd. 

I personally would have expected a stronger reaction at some point, although it’s been pointed out to me that Dar is still very much in that abusive relationship with Kal himself, and honestly doesn’t have much room to react even if he wants to. I also am unsure how much Etain would be willing to tell him of what transpired, given that one of her initial goals in telling him about Kad was explicitly to not blame Skirata for anything.

Which leads me to….

((** technically, yes, this is inaccurate… at first Etain’s plan is not to tell Darman right away which she comes up with a plan and figures out what to do, in order to protect him. But we do see by the time she’s 3 months/6 months into her pregnancy in True Colors she’s already thought the better of the idea and would contact him and tell him were she not forbidden to by Kal (pg. 18-19 in the paperback) so I’m perfectly willing to still let Kal have the blame on this.))

What doesn’t Dar know, canonically?

So Darman knows that Kal prevented Etain telling about the baby, and that he threatened to take the child from her all together, although he likely knows very little actual detail. The things we never see him learn on screen, on the other hand, are exactly the ones you bring up:

the fact that Kal twice gave Kad a name with out any say so from Etain, and explicitly told her she wasn’t allowed to choose a name for her son

that the threat to take her child was ongoing and ever-present rather than a one time, when she found out she was pregnant kind of thing

the fact that Kal chose to send to Etain to Qiilura with no medical or emotional support rather than Etain being genuinely assigned there

that Etain nearly miscarried

that Kal emotionally blackmailed Etain, accusing her both of being unfaithful and of using Darman

In one of the RepComm group chats I’m in, we more or less decided that had Darman been told about Etain’s near miscarriage during his initial conversation with Kal, he very likely would have tried to kill Skirata then and there. Kal is his father-savior-figure from childhood, yes, but at the same time:

Darman’s trust has already been broken enough to push him to violence against Kal, just based on the revelations about Kad’s existence and Ko Sai’s death

While Darman is angry with Etain, the quote from the last section again indicates that his expectation was that his love for Kal meant that Kal would also be a father to, or at least be kind to the woman he loved and had chosen as his partner. Learning the specifics of Kal’s treatment of her- which Kal also hid from him- is another specific betrayal of his trust

Darman is incredibly protective of Etain, to sometimes a not necessarily healthy or normal degree. We see this in his reaction to Fi in Hard Contact, to Scorch’s teasing in Triple Zero and his plan to “smack Sev later for the wisecracks [about Etain’s decision making]” in Order 66 , not to mention his reaction to her emotional states or to actual physical danger. Even if he’s heartbroken and angry that she’s been lying to him,  that’s a long way from being okay with her coming to harm or dying. He still would not have taken well to learning that she and her baby were both placed at risk of dying because Kal put her in harm’s way with no access to medical resources. 

The problem here is that there are only two people in the room when he confronts Skirata who would even have that information to give him: Vau and Kal himself. 

Vau absolutely does not involve himself in any way except to tell the other commandos to let Dar go after Kal without interference, and he has no particular motivation to become involved in the drama. It’s quite possible that there’s still even things on the list he doesn’t know. (For instance, he knows about Etain’s near miscarriage, but not the initial threats or conversation, or anything about the names, even if he did care to reveal it.)  

Kal, who does know everything, has absolutely no incentive to drag anything out into the open that isn’t already there. He accepts some blame because he has become attached to the idea of Dar and Etain together since she gave birth, but he isn’t going to want to go into everything else that happened if Dar doesn’t already know.

So inside that scene as it stands, there’s no way for Darman to discover the full context. Outside of it only a handful of people know everything. Ordo was unwillingly dragged into most of it, and I tend to think this means Mereel and the other Nulls likely know as well after Bardan alerts Mereel to Etain’s pregnancy. But again, Ordo has no particular incentive to bring up anything Dar doesn’t already know  after seeing the injuries Kal has sustained, and Darman has no incentive to turn to Mereel (who is close to Etain, but likely not Darman) or the other Nulls.

Which only leaves Etain. 

On screen, Etain and Dar don’t really have another conversation about her secret-keeping after he forgives her and she decides not to press him too hard or too much further re: his feelings towards Kal. Traviss drops all actual conflict from the scenario pretty quickly, and we never see it come up again between the two of them.

But, reading between the lines and inferring? We see Etain in Order 66 trying to actively change her behavior and not exclude Dar from her decision making. We know that she was miserable lying to him, and that she wants to make things better between them. Realistically, during the course of the month they spent together with the baby, with Darman still very much aware that things had been kept from him, I think there would have had to be a series of slow, careful conversations as they mended their relationship. So Etain probably did tell Darman that Kal suggested “Venku”, that she had complications while she was pregnant, etc…

I just don’t imagine she did so in a way that actually implicates Kal.

“There was no purpose to be served by telling him Skirata had stopped her. She’d deceived Darman from the start, planning to conceive, making him think there was no risk of pregnancy. It was her fault: she would face the consequence alone.” (Order 66, pg. 199)

From the way I read the series? Etain is absolutely still traumatized by her pregnancy, even if she prefers not to confront those emotions. Telling Darman exactly what happened would mean she would have to relive it again, and Etain already spent a lot of time miserable and afraid. 

But more importantly, she a) believes she deserves what happened to her and any consequences still forthcoming b) wants desperately to love and be loved by Kal, because Kal has made himself so essential to the family she wants, which means not pointing a finger in Kal’s direction.

It’s not great as far as making amends and being honest goes, but Dar probably gets the version with some of the details… and none of the blame or responsibility. He doesn’t know how Kal specifically engineered the hurts Etain’s faced, only that Etain had a difficult time.

 After Etain canonically dies in Order 66, he loses any opportunity to hear directly from her. Kal still has no incentive, and neither do Ordo or Vau. He’s already in really, really bad shape after losing Etain, the point of a full trauma-induced breakdown and she’s past any helping. 

I suppose this whole section is my long-winded way of saying that as it stands, generally in a verse where the novels happen as scripted, I don’t expect Darman to ever actually find out.

What happens in a verse where Etain doesn’t die?

 The thing is, I’m not sure how the topic would ever come up in my Etain Lives AU. By the time Etain is recovering and reunited with Darman, they still face some of the same issues as the original scenario:

Dar is in a really bad mental place, and telling him is probably not going to help him deal with things any Any reaction he has is likely to be extreme.

Etain still feels like she deserves it and also doesn’t want to have to deal with facing the emotions behind what happened to her again, particularly when she needs to feel as if she can love and trust Kal

Even if they do confront it, they can’t do anything about the situation it leaves them in; they’re still dependent on Kal. even if Dar wants to, he can’t declare Kal dar’buir on the spot.

Kal has put himself at the center of this family and therefore their every other social connection. They have no contacts, resources, or wealth not tied somehow to him. 

The cure isn’t developed. 

The Empire wants them both dead. 

They both have an assortment of physical and mental traumas to deal with. 

And on top of that, they have a baby who is also under threat, and who would be completely and utterly dependent on them if they decided to leave.

But when (there has to be a when, in this verse, not an if, if they’re ever meant to actually heal and get better) the information does finally come out… it’s not going to be good. 

To some extent, Order 66 can already be partially blamed on Kal. Yes, Traviss handed Etain the idiot ball, but there was no reason for Etain ever to have even returned to Coruscant. There was no reason for the clan to have stayed on Coruscant as long as they did, and in fact Ordo at one point tries to tell Kal it’s a bad idea, that they should get out while they can. 

Events play out the way they do largely because Kal committed to the random exfil date he had put on his calendar and to evaccing everyone from the same place, when multiple other characters in text point out that those things make no sense.

On top of all of this poor planning of Kal’s, which help feed to Etain’s (nonsensical) canon death, he never actually told either Etain or the commandos that he had a date set for the desertion. They had no ability to plan or prepare, because Kal literally doesn’t tell them it’s happening for sure until the Purge actually comes down on them the night before his planned date.

The Etain Lives Verse has reframed and restructured the events of Order 66 so that they make more logical sense, but in either case Etain’s fate during the Jedi Purge is at least partially a direct result of Kal’s continuing need to be in control and to hold back information from the rest of his family in order to achieve that control.

Darman, who is already furious at Kal for keeping secrets, is confronted with a situation where the exact things that Kal did to hurt him before have now almost cost him Etain’s life. 

To quote @izzyovercoffee from the group chat, there’s two ways things go at that point:

I feel like [Darman] would be too fatigued mentally [to yell at Kal for the situation that leads to almost losing Etain] , because if Kal didn’t GET IT from the actual beating then he won’t ever get it. Because that blow up between them?  That’s the same thing. It’s the same situation. Kal withholds information and people get hurt…. 

…either Darman explodes … or he fizzles out. The only thing that saves him is that Etain is still alive, but whatever reaction he have will be an extreme one. 

 For myself?

I see Darman being absolutely furious just at how Kal’s need for control lead to the Purge situation, without knowing about how Etain’s life had been previously endangered. I see it pushing it’s way to another blow up, another explosion. He’s grieving and in traumatized and realizing that he can’t make things better with Kal because Kal doesn’t change his behaviors. It probably ends with another fist fight, although this time his brothers know what to expect and try to step in earlier.

But that doesn’t make things any better with Kal, who writes Darman off in the same way he’s always dismissed the Nulls as “unstable”, without actually changing the behavior.

At which part Dar… fizzles.

He can’t trust Kal, but he also can’t fix the situation. He stops trying, retreats, becomes harder in an attempt to defend himself. He’s suspicious. But his anger is too exhausting to try and wield as a sword when Kal will only ever dismiss him.

He might have killed Kal during the second fight, might have declared him dar’buir…. but in this verse, Etain is still alive, still needs him, still needs him to look after his son. And Kal has got him in a position where he can’t do that, or can’t seem to, without Kal’s good will.

So he retreats, and probably suffers for it.

I don’t see the rest of the story coming out until after he’s already lost that confrontation,and in bits and pieces at that. I’m not even sure how it starts- does Mereel say something to him, quietly, that leads him to ask Etain? Does she, trying to deal with her own almost-death and the pressure of being expected to live as part of one large, trauma-free family, begin to confess to him one night when she’s almost in tears and too tired to hold it back?

Dar doesn’t explode this time; he can’t afford to. But the anger sits like a knife in his mouth. He’s short tempered and restless. He questions everything he’s told, has to battle suspicion even when it isn’t Kal speaking to him. He refuses to accept anything Kal says at face value, cuts him out as effectively as if he had actually formally divorced the man as his parent. He lays contingency after contingency, some needed and some not, because he can’t trust anyone else to keep Etain and Kad safe. Omega knows something’s wrong, tries to reach out to him because he isn’t coping, but Kal dismisses his pent up rage as an unrelated part of his PTSD and thus “beyond fixing”. Eventually the planning shifts to trying to find a way out for him and his family.

It’s honestly probably a really bad time for a while, because what Dar (like many other members of the clan) needs is a therapist to start helping him work through his trauma and some sort of safe autonomy.

Ultimately the situation can’t improve much, doesn’t improve until someone steps in to help find him some outside help (my money is on Rav here, tbh) and until Mereel’s death ultimately furnishes them with a way to escape Kyrimorut.

[dorothydelgadillo]

The Communication Continuum (The IMPACT Show Ep. 63)

In this week's episode of The IMPACT Show, Nick and I talked about Facebook's outage, overcoming people wanting free advice, cleaning up your HubSpot instance, and more! 

Plus, Nick recorded from HubSpot headquarters this week!

Check out the video recording below as well as the show notes. Enjoy and let us know what you thought in IMPACT Elite.

  Like what you saw? Make sure to subscribe to email reminders and give us a review on iTunes.

Have feedback or questions? We’d love to hear it. Comment on this article, hit us up in Elite, or email us at show@impactbnd.com

IMPACT Updates

An Update on The Latest [from IMAPCT]

Not already getting The Latest? First things first, sign up to receive it.

We launched The Latest about 2 months ago so we're still drawing conclusions but people have responded saying they like the new format. Here’s what we’ve concluded so far: 

Don’t be alarmed when something changes data wise...that’s part of experimenting.

It's important for us that our newsletter comes from a person.

We also wanted our newsletter to be IMPACT-y. For us, that meant maintaining our specific voice and tone regardless of who writes it and curates the content.

We had to make this conversational and make sure we're always asking for a reply. Email is a two-way conversation not a one-way blast.

It was very important to update our subscriber settings accordingly on the back end.

Our next step is directly asking for feedback after a bit and continuing to monitor its performance with open and click rates (and unsubscribes!). 

Samantha Harr asked in Elite: "We have a newsletter we send out and we want to establish metrics by which to judge progress on growing outreach. The number of people who sign up to receive the newsletter is a clear metric, but we want to find a way to judge the quality of the recipients." John McTigue replied: "Write segmented articles or posts for different personas and include them in your newsletter with different tracking url's." Andrea Galvez replied: "A really, really simple way of doing this is to ask! Add 1-3 qualifying questions to your opt-in form."

Both quick and easy ways to accomplish what Samantha was looking to do! 

Client Success Broadcast #2!

This one is all about video! Why video?

As we introduce new services we've struggled to get the word out to our existing clients about these new things we offer that will help our clients. This is a way for us to make it valuable for them in a way that just us talking about new services wouldn't be.  How are you educating your audience about what you do?

IMPACT Live for Teams!

We’ve launched a new IMPACT Live program specifically for teams.

We're offering special deals for companies who want to bring their whole team (or a chunk of their team) to IMPACT Live 2019. You can get priority seating, concierge level treatment, and more! It is limited though - as we only have so many front row seats and people to help. So get on it! Get all the info about IMPACT Live for teams.  Check out the video:

What Marketers Be Talkin' 'Bout

Where we go over what you're saying in IMPACT Elite.

MPACT Elite is a community of officially over 4,000 passionate inbounders looking to help each other succeed. That’s right! We hit 4,000. 

As Nick pointed out - that's the size of a small town! Let us know in Elite if you're from or live in a town smaller than Elite.

Check out the video we posted to celebrate: 

Of course then, Facebook had an outage - which meant so did Elite. Naturally, my life flashed before my eyes. So I wrote this article about why when Facebook goes down your business shouldn't and how to prevent it.

One of the three things I talk about is creating an advocate community - which I am doing! If you're interested in getting rewarded for things you're already doing like sharing our content, engaging in Elite, and coming to IMPACT Live then sign up for IMPACT Insiders!

Generating a Brand New Content Strategy

Andrew Carroll posted: “I’ve been recently been given the challenge of generating a content strategy for a company that’s never viewed content as a priority. It’s an exciting challenge that now has executive buy-in (and resources!) but we are still very lean. Any tips on producing high-quality keyword driven content would be greatly appreciated. Any early mistakes made I can learn from?” Check out the discussion in Elite!

How do you avoid people wanting free advice?

One of our most engaged Elite members and now an IMPACT team member as well, Caitlin Sellers Castevens, posted: “How do you overcome people wanting free advice, free promo, introductions, access to contacts, etc?

I don’t want to be rude but I also don’t want to listen to someone throw up as much info as possible about their biz at a networking event, expect a solution, maybe a quote off the cuff, and free consulting.

I politely say it is great connecting, email me if you want to continue the convo but they JUST.KEEP.TALKING. to the point where it is keeping me from meeting others.”

That's a tough one but certainly familiar to many of us. Check out the great tips and discussion on this topic in Elite.

Nick shared his "gotta keep moving!" technique which I tried at INBOUND this year and loved!

IMPACT Elite Live Conversations Series

We have a series of live conversations that are exclusively available to IMPACT Elite members. The third conversation in our series was this week with Tammy Duggan-Herd from Campaign Creators. Check out the recording in Elite. 

Here are the upcoming conversations:

November 27th Salma Jafri, Founder of Be the Media and manager of Personal Branding with Video Facebook group December 11th Mark Rogers - Carney/The Daily Carnage

You can add the entire series to your calendar here!

Inbound in Action

This is where we talk about what we’re doing and what we’ve learned lately right here in the trenches. 

Cleaning Up Your HubSpot Instance

Ah, my workflow weekend…this weekend I spent some time auditing and cleaning up IMPACT's workflows in HubSpot. We've been doing some ongoing clean up of lists, contact data, contact properties, and more.

Check out Nick's INBOUND 2016 session "Chaos Under Control: How To Organize a Messy Contacts Database" for some tips on how you can do this yourself. If this sounds like something you need but just can't manage the time to make it happen - reach out to us! IMPACT can help.

Keeping Up with Reviews

We know reviews are important today. Regardless of your type of business you'll likely be reading reviews before making a purchase decision. For IMPACT, the HubSpot partner agency directory is a big deal for us and we know that it's vital that we have reviews there. So, we're working as a team to make sure we keep up with getting our clients to post a review of their experience with us. 

We would love your comments. What did you think of the show? Let us know in Elite. Make sure you never miss a show or update by subscribing at impactbnd.com/latest. 

Join Us Next Time! 

Until next time...we'll see you in Elite!

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/communication-continuum-impact-show

[caveartfair]

Understanding Francisco de Goya through 6 Pivotal Artworks

The Spanish artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)—destined to be known simply as Goya—painted what he saw, and what he saw wasn’t pretty. Over the course of his long life, soldiers fired at children while incompetent politicians brought Spain to the brink of ruin. This may explain why his work continues to shock almost two centuries after his death: it can be hard to fight the feeling that nothing has really changed between then and now. To quote the critic Robert Hughes, author of a 2003 biography of the artist, “He speaks to us with an urgency that no artist of our time can muster. We see his long-dead face pressed against the glass of our terrible century, Goya looking in at a time worse than his.”

Goya may have been a pessimist, but he knew how to make pessimism enthralling. His prints and paintings can be side-splittingly funny, and they’re strikingly beautiful, even (or especially) when they depict ugliness. Throughout his career, he remained clear-eyed enough to see the world as it really was—and brave enough to find the dark humor therein.

Parasol (1777)

Francisco de Goya, The Parasol, 1777. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s one of art history’s greatest ironies that Goya, usually considered the preeminent Spanish painter of the late 18th century, failed to earn admission to a single art school. Perhaps for the best, his path to success was long and uneven, giving him ample time to cultivate an unmistakable style. Goya spent much of his twenties in Rome and Madrid studying the works of Raphael, Diego Velázquez, and other Old Masters, and by 1773, the year he married, he’d won major commissions from the Spanish nobility.

With its cheery colors and tranquil composition, Parasol, completed the same year Goya turned thirty-one, may not seem to bear much of a resemblance to the dark masterpieces that followed. Instead, it suggests the ongoing influence of the Old Masters whose works Goya had encountered in Italy. Even if Goya was still grasping for a mature style, however, the painting shows off his talents, especially his keen eye for facial features. In the coming decades, he’d perfect the art of distorting and exaggerating the human face, often to stunning comedic effect.

Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga (1787–88)

Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (1784–1792), 1787–1788. Francisco de Goya The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Historians love to argue about when the modern era began. Here’s a dark horse theory: modernity kicked off in 1788 in the form of three cats lurking in the lower left quadrant of Goya’s Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga, often called Red Boy.

In the late 1780s, when Goya was the preferred portraitist in the court of King Charles III, the powerful Count of Altamira commissioned him to paint his youngest child, Manuel. Goya chose to depict the little boy in an adorable red suit, playing with a pet magpie. Look closer, however, and the sentimentality of the scene quickly sours. From the shadows, the trio of cats stares hungrily at the helpless bird, ready to pounce.

Modern life, as Goya saw it, was a sick joke, equal parts scary and absurd—a bird always on the verge of being gobbled up. His work is adept at conveying a disturbingly contemporary-seeming point of view, exposing the horrors hidden in plain sight.

Naked Maja (1797–1800)

The Nude Maja, ca. 1800. Francisco de Goya Museo del Prado, Madrid

Goya’s status as court painter gave him the chance to curry favor with some of Spain’s most powerful men and women, including the Duchess of Alba, with whom he is thought to have had a lengthy affair. She’s sometimes presumed to be the model for the jaw-dropping nude figure in Naked Maja, likely commissioned by future Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy.

In an age of endless Kim Kardashian selfies, it’s hard to imagine the stir this image caused at the time. As depicted in Spanish art, nude female bodies tended to belong either to idealized Greek goddesses or, on the other end of the spectrum, “wicked” prostitutes. Goya mixed the sacred with the profane by painting a contemporary woman, including her pubic hair (uncontroversial by today’s standards but almost unheard of in European art at the time), in the elegant, reclining pose of a Titian Venus. With the rise of the Spanish Inquisition a decade later, Naked Maja earned Goya the hostility of the Catholic clergy. He managed to protect his artwork’s reputation, and his own, by citing the hundreds of Old Masters who’d painted the reclining female figure before him. Not for the last time, Goya used artistic respectability as a Trojan Horse for his impish ends.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1797–98)

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, No. 43 from Los Caprichos (The Caprices), 1796-1798. Francisco de Goya Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

By 1793, Goya had all but lost his sense of hearing. Scholars still debate the reason why: it’s possible he contracted polio, though some have blamed syphilis or even the lead in his paints. What’s clear is that, after 1793, Goya’s art became more incisive and often more dangerous.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is the most famous of “Los caprichos,” a series of 80 etchings Goya created in the late 1790s. It’s also something of a mission statement for the artist’s satirical middle period. Among these etchings, it’s not unusual to find a dotty crone admiring herself in the mirror, a donkey smugly celebrating its family tree, or a gaggle of wizened noblemen crushing the proletariat under their weight. Throughout the series, Goya’s real targets are Spain’s power elites and, even more basically, the absence of reason that permitted their tyranny. Goya later withdrew his prints from circulation, recognizing that he’d already made too many enemies. Better to mock the monsters behind their backs.

The Third of May 1808 (1814)

The Third of May, 1814. Francisco de Goya Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

In November 1807, French troops invaded Spain and installed a new ruler. For the next six years, Spanish rebels fought the occupation; their resistance was the first ever to be termed “guerilla warfare.”  In the early hours of May 3, 1808, French soldiers carried out orders to round up and execute hundreds of suspected rebels.

Goya may have been present for the massacres. Then again, he may have been working from eyewitnesses’ descriptions. In either case, The Third of May 1808 represents the culmination of his artistic development over the previous three decades. The subtle lighting signals his careful study of the Old Masters, though the scene he’s chosen to illuminate is grislier than anything Velázquez ever dreamed up. The bloody corpses signal his indifference to good taste. But above all, the painting signals Goya’s cold, quiet fury with his own society. He doesn’t simply accuse the French soldiers of war crimes—in fact, there’s almost nothing in the frame to indicate the figures’ nationality. Instead, his nightmare transcends time and place: the faceless troops might as well be Nazis at Dachau or GIs at My Lai. It’s this grim universality that makes The Third of May 1808, in the words of Robert Hughes, “truly modern … the picture against which all future paintings of tragic violence would have to measure themselves.”

Saturn Devouring His Son (1819-23)

Saturn Devouring One of His Sons. (From the series of Black Paintings.), 1819-1823. Francisco de Goya Museo Nacional del Prado

In his seventies, widowed, and out of favor with the monarchy, Goya relocated to Bordeaux, France. It was here that he completed his final great series: the fourteen “Black Paintings.” Unlike the bulk of his earlier works, these were never meant for public viewing. Examining the massive Saturn Devouring His Son (1819-23), it’s not hard to see why. Goya chose as his subject one of the bleakest episodes from Greek mythology, in which the god of time ensures his survival by eating his offspring. Often interpreted as an allegory for the decay of the Spanish state, Saturn twists expectations by showing time as a babyish brute, as pathetic as he is terrifying.

Across Goya��s hundreds of prints and paintings, the same type of face keeps reappearing: goggle-eyed, mindless, and uncontrollably greedy. Sometimes, this face belongs to an animal, sometimes it belongs to a human being, and sometimes it’s hard to tell. It skulks in the background of Red Boy, emerges from the shadows in The Sleep of Reason, and in Saturn, completed just a few years before Goya’s death, finally shows itself without shame.

Might this face symbolize the nightmare of modernity as Goya experienced it? Over the course of his eighty-two years, the Spanish state collapsed and Europe waged a brutal war with itself—enough greed and stupidity for ten lifetimes. In response, Goya offered a deceptively simple artistic motto: “yo lo vi” (“I saw it.”) Those three words communicate an idea as necessary in the 21st century as it was in the 19th: In dark times, bearing witness to the truth is not for the faint of heart.

from Artsy News

[gardencityvegans]

Emilie Raffa’s Everyday Sourdough & Spicy White Bean Arugula Dip

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I haven’t consciously marked many milestones in my life as a home cook. My learning curve has unfurled slowly and gradually: a day comes when something I used to struggle with suddenly feels like habit, or I realize that a process I used to dread is no longer a big deal. Many of these moments have had to do with baking, simply because it’s more technical and less intuitive (for me) than cooking always has been.

2017 has been the year of bread. I started making my own bread regularly for the first time in my life, inspired by Alexandra Stafford’s amazing Bread, Toast, Crumbs, and then spurred on by The New Laurel’s Kitchen (which is full of good instruction). I’d feared homemade bread-baking for years, intimidated by overly technical advice and anxieties about whether I’d have the right sense of timing and intuition.

This year, I’ve learned that, to quote Julia Turshen, “yeast is just an ingredient,” and there’s nothing so scary about kneading or shaping dough. I’ve come to love the feel of dough in my hands. I love sitting back and watching it do its thing: resting, rising, and turning a deep golden shade in the oven.

Bread baking found me at the right time. I started cooking from Ali’s book just as I was processing the loss of a long-term relationship. I was bereft, and baking kept me company. It gave me something to do, and it presented me with a constant series of new challenges, each satisfying yet incremental enough enough to be manageable.

Most of all, it gave me bread. Loaf after tender, fragrant loaf. I can’t think of too many things that I cam as consistently happy to eat than bread or toast, and all of the things you can serve with them (dip, soup, etc.).

Through all of this, I’ve told myself that yeasted breads are within my reach, but sourdough isn’t for me. Sourdough is for serious bread bakers, those who know the ins and outs of autolysing and levains and scoring and hydration. I follow countless sourdough Instagrammers, but to some extent that has only made me more intimidated, rather than less.

Still, I haven’t been able to shake the itch to give sourdough a whirl, and the work of many women—Cheri Litchfield and Sarah C. Owens among them—has given me the ongoing encouragement I need. It was Cheri who reminded me that, no matter how technical sourdough-making can be, it’s also a time-honored method that home cooks have been practicing for hundreds of years.

I’ve known this for a while, but I needed someone to walk me through it—a warm, friendly, accessible guide. Enter Emilie Raffa.

You might know Emilie as the author of the Clever Carrot blog, where she shares wholesome and hearty comfort food recipes. She’s also an accomplished bread maker, and her new book, Artisan Sourdough Made Simple, is a loving tribute to the ins and outs of bread making. It is the most accessible, down-to-earth resource I’ve ever seen about sourdough (having purchased and left dormant a number of much more technical books).

I have Emilie to thank for the fact that, as of last week, I’ve been baking fresh sourdough every other morning, tearing it into hunks and dipping it in soup, using it for toast, slicing it up for sandwiches, and sharing gleefully it with my neighbors and friends.

It’s hard for me to say how gratifying it has been—not just the amazement I felt when I realized that I could do it, but also the sensation of empowerment that baking one’s own bread can bestow. It’s so gratifying to create a staple food from nothing but flour, water, and salt. I see more than ever why the process becomes so intoxicating over time. And I see that sourdough isn’t a project for master bakers. It really can be simple, intuitive, and fun.

I’ll be sharing Emilie’s foundational recipe for everyday sourdough in this post, along with a tasty dip to dunk your slices into. But I want to emphasize that the whole book is invaluable, especially if you’re new to sourdough. Emilie walks you through every step of the process, including creation of a starter, with simple instructions and useful cues. If you want to start baking regularly, you’ll want to read everything she has to say.

And reading it won’t overwhelm you. This book is neither dense nor dry. Emilie is happy to leave out certain techniques or terms, assuring readers that they don’t need to know everything about sourdough in order to get started. She gives you exactly as much information as is necessary for beginners. I don’t doubt that I’ll keep wanting to learn about this process, but as a novice I felt so grateful that Emilie was able to help me separate the essentials from the graduate level stuff.

Along with the book, Emilie shared with me a package of her dried starter, which is named Dylan, after her son. Dylan is the offspring of Priscilla, a robust starter that Emilie’s friend Celia shipped to her all the way from Australia years ago. Starter, she says, is meant to be shared. Using Emilie’s dried starter means that I didn’t need to grow my own from scratch; within 3 days, I had a jar that was well-fed, bubbly and ready to go.

At the end of today’s post, after the recipe, I’ll be offering a chance for a US or Canadian reader to win a copy of the book and a package of Emilie’s dried starter. Together, they’re everything you need to get started with your own loaves. For now, though, I want to share Emilie’s incredible, practically no-knead everyday sourdough recipe, along with her zippy, garlicky, oh-so-simple recipe for white bean arugula dip!

Emilie Raffa's Everyday Sourdough

Print

Recipe type: side

Cuisine: vegan, no oil, soy free, tree nut free

Author: Emilie Raffa

Serves: 1 loaf

Every baker needs an all-purpose, go-to loaf in their repertoire. And if you’re new to sourdough, this is the perfect place to start. Simply make the dough, let it rise overnight, and bake in the morning. It requires very little effort with big reward. The crust is golden and crunchy, and the velvety crumb is perfect for sandwiches and toast. Try a few thick-cut slices with creamy avocado and tomato or the most delicious grilled cheese sandwich you will ever sink your teeth into. This is my family’s favorite loaf.

Ingredients

Baker’s Schedule:

Thursday–Saturday: Feed your starter until bubbly and active.

Saturday Evening: Make the dough, and let rise overnight.

Sunday Morning: Shape the dough, let rise again, score, and bake.

Ingredients

50 g (1⁄4 cup) bubbly, active starter

350 g (11⁄3 cups plus 2 tbsp) warm water

500 g (4 cups plus 2 tbsp) bread flour 9 g (11⁄2 tsp) fine sea salt

Instructions

Make the Dough: In the evening, whisk the starter and water together in a large bowl with a fork. Add the flour and salt. Combine until a stiff dough forms, then finish mixing by hand to fully incorporate the flour. The dough will feel dense and shaggy, and it will stick to your fingers as you go. Scrape off as much as you can. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 30 minutes. Replenish your starter with fresh flour and water, and store according to preference.

After the dough has rested, work the mass into a fairly smooth ball. To do this, grab a portion of the dough and fold it over, pressing your fingertips into the center. Repeat, working your way around the dough until it begins to tighten, about 15 seconds.

Bulk rise: Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise overnight at room temperature. This will take about 8 to 10 hours at 70°F (21°C). The dough is ready when it no longer looks dense and has doubled in size.

Shape: In the morning, coax the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. To shape it into a round, start at the top and fold the dough over toward the center. Turn the dough slightly and fold over the next section of dough. Repeat until you have come full circle. Flip the dough over and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, line an 8-inch (20-cm) bowl with a towel and dust with flour. With floured hands, gently cup the dough and pull it toward you in a circular motion to tighten its shape. Using a bench scraper, place the dough into the bowl, seam side up.

Second rise: Cover the bowl and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour. The dough is ready when it looks puffy and has risen slightly but has not yet doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 450°F (230°C). Cut a sheet of parchment paper to fit the size of your baking pot, leaving enough excess around the sides to remove the bread.

Score: Place the parchment over the dough and invert the bowl to release. Sprinkle the dough with flour and gently rub the surface with your hands. Using the tip of a small, serrated knife or a razor blade, score the dough with the cross-cut pattern on page 195, or any way you’d like. Use the parchment to transfer the dough to the baking pot.

Bake: Bake the dough on the center rack for 20 minutes, covered. Remove the lid, and continue to bake for 30 minutes. Then, carefully remove the loaf from the pot and bake directly on the oven rack for the last 10 minutes to crisp the crust. When finished, transfer to a wire rack. Cool for 1 hour before slicing.

Sourdough is best consumed on the same day it is baked. To maximize freshness, cool completely and store at room temperature in a plastic bag for up to 1 day.

Notes

About the Dough: Because this dough rises while you’re asleep, you won’t be tempted to rush the process or check on it every five seconds to see if it’s ready. Have a look at the baker’s schedule, then make adjustments to suit your own schedule. The overnight method can be applied to most of the recipes in this book.

3.5.3226

Emilie Raffa's Spicy White Bean Arugula Dip

Print

Recipe type: dip, spread, starter

Cuisine: vegan, gluten free, soy free, tree nut free

Author: Emilie Raffa

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 2 cups

This creamy white bean dip with baby arugula is the perfect destination for a slice of artisan sourdough. It’s not only healthy, but it’s incredibly simple to make—just pulse a few times in the blender and you’re done.

Ingredients

11⁄2 cups (375 g) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1 small handful of baby arugula

1⁄4 cup (60 ml) olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1⁄2 garlic clove, chopped

Pinch of red pepper flakes

Zest of 1 lemon, juice reserved

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Add the beans, arugula, olive oil, garlic, red pepper, zest, and juice of half the lemon to a blender. Season generously with salt and pepper. Pulse a few times to combine. The texture should be creamy and rustic. Taste the dip and adjust with more lemon juice or salt and pepper if needed.

Transfer the dip to a small bowl and drizzle with extra olive oil and red pepper flakes. Arrange your sourdough slices on the side, to serve for dipping.

Notes

You can also use fresh parsley or cilantro leaves in place of the arugula.

3.5.3226

Clearly, I’m over the moon about Emilie’s bread—not just the signature Everyday Sourdough, but the many other incredible loaves in this book, including Seeded Pumpkin Cranberry, Roasted Garlic and Rosemary, and Danish Rye Bread.

But it’s worth saying how awesome this dip is, too. It’s the kind of thing you can whip up in mere minutes if you’ve got a can of beans and a handful of bitter greens or herbs, certain that your friends or whoever’s coming over will polish it off. The creaminess of the beans and olive oil are offset by the bite of garlic and pepper, and the dip is so much more complex than its simple preparation would suggest.

If you’ve thought about sourdough but haven’t known where to begin, this is the book for you. And even if you’ve never made bread before, it’ll give you all the tools you need to understand the process. What Emilie teaches you will serve you with any type of bread-making, and her assortment of recipes (which span not only breads, but also crackers, rolls, desserts, and savory meals) will give you plenty of ideas about what to do with all of the marvelous loaves you’re making.

Enter below to win a copy for yourself. I’ll pick a winner two weeks from today!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As I said, bread making has found me at the right time, and I’m so excited to continue learning and sharing about the process. Perhaps Emilie’s work will inspire you to consider making sourdough at home, as it has inspired me—and if not, I hope it’ll encourage you to pick up a loaf of bread from your local baker and slathering it with some creamy white bean dip.

Enjoy the recipes, and see you this weekend for the roundup!

xo

[Read More ...] https://www.thefullhelping.com/emilie-raffas-everyday-sourdough-white-bean-arugula-spread/

[massthetics-blog]

New Post has been published on MASSthetics

New Post has been published on http://massthetics.net/peak-week/

The Road to Nationals – Tweaking Through Peak Week

The Road to Nationals – Tweaking Through Peak Week

Ahh, Peak Week. What a week to be alive.

Also known as the week before stepping on stage in which you try a whack of voodoo and magic tricks, thus ruining everything you worked for over the past 4-6 months. On the other hand, you can be ready well in advance, focus on keeping your stress levels low, and cruise onto the stage by staying the course, and making minor adjustments as needed.

This encapsulation of my final days leading up to stepping upon the Canadian National Bodybuilding stage began with a simple desire to document the process to provide a frame of reference for future competitions, and to allow the lessons learned during the process to sink in.

From that germ of an idea, it spread into an ongoing series of which I shared with the community of brothers and sisters-in-swole that make up Mullan’s Meatheads. As the week went on, I came to realize that there were valuable lessons and interesting insights amongst the daily meatheaded musings of this peak week, and I’d be remiss to not compile all these “diary” entires into a singular blog post.

Which is what you’re about to read below. Enjoy.

6 Days Out – A primer on peak week

To kick this off, let’s clear up exactly what peak week is.

In the competitive bodybuilding world, “peak week” refers to the final 6-8 days leading up to stepping on stage, in which you (typically) will pull back on training, cardio, do what you need to do in order to make your weight class (if needed), deplete yourself to the best of your ability, then “fill out” for the the big day.

Peak week will almost assuredly go one of two ways, depending on your approach.

If you fall victim to the countless shiny tactics and seemingly brilliant peak week ideas out there, you will fuck up your physique.

You’ll come in flat, watery, and empty on stage, often while battling a whack of negative side effects while trying to keep it together onstage. When you’re this damn lean, the smallest of details can have a powerful impact, and it’ll show.

If you do it right?

You’ll practically cruise onto the stage, and pull off presenting a tight, dry, and full physique. For the record, “doing it right” essentially means being “ready” 10-14 days in advance, do nothing drastic or stupid, and making small adjustments each day to fine-tune things leading up to the stage. Which is one step a lot competitors miss. Many fall victim to thinking that peak week will bring out loads of magical muscle detail or be the week they drop those last bits of body fat. 

If you’re not stage-ready in time for peak week, you will not be ready come show day. Simple as that.

You often hear of competitors lamenting afterwards about not being able to get “the last bit of water out” or some such excuse. The reality of the statement?

You weren’t lean enough, you weren’t ready in time.

In my case, I was in the fortunate position of being “ready” since the 3 week mark rolled around, and being ready so early made the final stages of this prep incredibly smooth, and relatively enjoyable.

My peak week began with a trial run of how my body would respond to filling out. This meant 5 meals, spread 3 hours apart, each consisting of 20 grams of protein, 50 grams of carbs, and trace fats.

Weight was checked 2 hours after each meal, and pictures taken after the 3rd meal. Water was kept stable at 6 litres, and salt at 1/4 tsp in each meal.

Last year I had the utter *pleasure* of having to drop roughly 10 pounds in the final week to squeeze into my weight class. Needless to say, both my peak weeks last year were utter hell. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like such a bag of trash, or waste of space as I did in those final days. To make such a big cut, I was doing 2 cardio sessions, training, 3-4 blazing hot epsom salt baths per day, and eating paltry amounts of protein and veggies. No carbs, no fats, no life in my body.

This year, I had 7lbs to drop, and plenty of time to do so. Instead of depleting water and sodium like last year, given how responsive my body has been, it was as simple as “switching off” food the day before and of weigh-ins, while pulling back on water, and a few rounds of epsom salt baths the day before and morning of weighing in.

As for today, it was business as usual:

One fasted 40 minute cardio session in the morning.

A quick and dirty chest & triceps session in the afternoon.

220g protein, 10g fat, and no carbs spread over 5 meals.

All of the coffee.

Extra focus placed on keeping stress low (if there was ever a key to peak week, it’s this).

5 Days Out – I’m riding an energetic high

Okay, now that we’re on the same page with what peak week actually is, and the role it plays in stepping on stage, we can get right into what went down today.

In terms of activity, today consisted of 40 minutes of fasted steady-state cardio in the morning, and a real quick (took me about 35 minutes) back & biceps session in the afternoon.

The underlying goal with training during peak week is not about building muscle (that ship sailed away many weeks ago). Instead, it’s about getting a quick pump, steering clear of muscular failure, aiding nutrient partitioning, then getting the hell outta there.

From a nutrition standpoint, I was able to eat a whopping 50 grams. Which turned out to be the setup for the next two days, and I kept my sources strictly to jasmine rice or potato as stressing my digestive system is the last thing I want to do at this point.

As it was for the past few days, I was still drinking 6-7L of water each day, and bumped that up to 7.5L at 4 days out.

Mentally, it was a great day, and to be honest…I truly cannot complain. My energy levels were up (relatively speaking). Although, that could have been the 4 delicious coffees I drank. The weather was absolutely fantastic, and I was excited to train (which is rare at this point).

All things being considered, I was quite happy with how things were shaping up at 5 days out.

To loosely quote @andyfrisella, "How you *feel* is irrelevant. What you *do* in spite of how you feel is what matters and drives you forward." • At this point, all the fasted cardio, training, and running on zero carbs aren't leaving me feeling like a million bucks. But in just over 5 days, every single moment will have been worth it. Besides, at the end of the day, contest prep is a fascinating process to go through. End half-baked, brain-fog-heavy thought. #roadtonationals #thewanderingmeathead #picklepump • • • • • #massthetics #masstheticsclan #doyouevenlift #meatheadproblems #teammpt #legworkouts #legday #gymflow #gymrat #bodybuilding #truenutrition #ironrebel #CBBFF #BCABBA #mirin #instabodybuilding #gains #quadzilla #swole #trainhard #shredded #bodybuildingnation #meathead #fitfam #muscle #elitefts #bodybuildinglife

A post shared by Get Swole with Alex Mullan (@alexmullan13) on Jun 25, 2017 at 5:12pm PDT

4 Days Out – …and the high rolls on

Today was a goddamn whirlwind.

Between having my second-to-last session of cardio (now down to 30 minutes fasted) and training (a quick 40 minute chest & delts blast), a trip to the barbers, prepping meals for the next day, grabbing last minute supplements, and finding my way to the airport, I didn’t have a chance to stop and breathe until waiting for my plane to board.

Quick note on going to the barber: one of my favourite parts of peak week, and something I find is quite underrated is the things you do to bring your swagger back, and get some life into your body. For me, this is a fresh haircut, taking care of all hair removal a few days in advance, making sure I’m not out of any personal care items, and doing what I can to ensure my skin is on point for when the tanner goes on. As I’ve said before, the details matter, and when you *know* you look good, it goes a long way towards helping you *feel* good as well. They feed into each other, and often bring forth some momentum and excitement.

Moving on.

Despite the added layers of complexity added, I loved the fact that the days leading up to the show were jam-packed. Between a quick trip “home” for my sister’s graduation, the grad festivities themselves, and travelling back and forth, Saturday came in the blink of an eye.

I’ll be honest — I’m not entirely sure how my energy levels were riding so strong at this point, but I wasn’t complaining.

Tomorrow was slated to be my final bout of cardio and last training session before I pull both, and focus on recovery and getting rid of any remaining inflammation. Best of all, given that I’ll was back in the town I grew up in, I was able to close out The Road to Nationals at my “home” gym. 

Took a quick break amidst all the graduation festivities to squeeze in my final training session of prep. Many thanks to the fine folks at @fitnessexcellence for letting me have my way with their weights today. Being able to wrap up this prep at my "home gym" seems rather fitting. • Now it's time to shift the focus to recovering, making weight, then filling back up for Saturday morning. #roadtonationals #thewanderingmeathead #sweetswollenbiceps • • • • • #massthetics #masstheticsclan #doyouevenlift #meatheadproblems #teammpt #legworkouts #legday #gymflow #gymrat #bodybuilding #truenutrition #ironrebel #CBBFF #BCABBA #mirin #instabodybuilding #gains #quadzilla #swole #trainhard #shredded #bodybuildingnation #meathead #fitfam #muscle #elitefts #bodybuildinglife

A post shared by Get Swole with Alex Mullan (@alexmullan13) on Jun 28, 2017 at 4:33pm PDT

Thanks to strategic amounts of coffee, being constantly on the move today, and having 7.5L of water to drink, appetite wasn’t much of an issue at this point. That being said, the gate for my flight was sandwiched between a Chili’s and some shop that sells ice cream cookie sundaes.

…

Fuck me, right?

3 Days Out – Meathead Mullan gets emotional, and the work is done

As I predicted, today was yet another whirlwind, but in the best of ways.

Things began on a great note by waking up to my body having dumped 2 pounds overnight, and noticeably tightening up.

In my eyes, this boded well for dropping the remaining 6 pounds I needed to lose by Friday afternoon in that I *shouldn’t* have to do anything drastic to make it happen.

As I mentioned yesterday, today was the day my sister graduates from high school.

I'm one proud meathead of a big brother right now, and this photo shall go down as one of my all-time favourites. • Over the past few years, watching @florencemullanfraser grow from being my timid and shy little sister into the confident, hard-working, glowing, and gorgeous woman standing next to me has been an incredible experience, and I'm grateful to have been a part of it. • If you don't have a little sister, I truly believe that you're missing out. Much love to you, Florence. #meatheadmusings #ohana #sistergains

A post shared by Get Swole with Alex Mullan (@alexmullan13) on Jun 29, 2017 at 12:05pm PDT

How she has grown to be 18, in charge of her life, and absolutely stunning if I may so, is utterly beyond me. 

After kicking the day off with my usual coffee and an hour or so of work, I rolled out to the gym for my final cardio session of prep.

Since I seem to enjoy making things more complex and tight for time than they need to be, today was also the day I decided to make the shift from a normal human with body hair, to having absolutely none aside from what sits on my head. Enter the two-and-a-half-hour waxing appointment I crammed into the morning.

After going through the awful chore of using shitty razors and sitting in tepid bathwater for two hours on two occasions last year, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going through that again. Not to mention the fact I don’t have the luxury of having someone around to shave the areas I can’t reach, which is quite literally half of me, this year.

So, waxing it was.

Fun story from my waxing appointment: when it came time to do my legs, I asked if I could sit up so that I could knock back a litre of water and eat a meal. Talk about being a fucking meathead. Thankfully my aesthetician was having a blast, and more than happy to oblige. Meatheads gotta do what a Meatheads gotta do.

Moving on.

I made it back to my parents in the nick of time for the photographer to show up so we could all parade around in fancy clothes and take beautiful pictures. Honestly, I thought I would hate it. Turns out it wasn’t so bad. Probably something to do with the momentous day that it is.

Once we wrapped up the photos, my sister headed off to take *more* pictures with her friends at a park, and it was time to knock out the final training session of prep.

Training today consisted of about 30-40 minutes of back, delts, and biceps work. My sole intention was to get in, pose, get a nice little pump, then get the hell out. Mission accomplished.

In terms of food, today was the same as yesterday.

220g protein, 50g carbs (WOOOO), absolutely zero fats.

That’s about it for today. I’ve got my final two meals prepped (protein and veggies), water bottles filled (2 more lifters to drink), and I’m off to watch ‘lil sis accept her diploma and all that jazz.

Tomorrow brings an early-ish flight back to Edmonton, and more weight to drop.

Then the fun shall truly begin…

2 Days Out – A cascade of excitement

After a day chock-full of my sister’s grad festivities, putting in the final two sessions of “work,” and getting set for the home stretch, I figured I’d be absolutely exhausted at this point.

But, in a probably not-so-surprising turn of events, I’m absolutely brimming with excitement, ecstatic with how my body has been responding this week, and without my usual evening “medication,” I could barely sleep last night.

Eventually, as it always does, morning came.

This morning consisted of my standard routine:

Wake up, rub the sleep out of my eyes, then stumble to the bathroom to check my morning weight (170.0 pounds today).

Take a fresh set of progress pictures, then get right to making coffee.

While drinking said coffee I fired off my pictures, weight, and relevant notes to my coach, then move onto writing my daily email to the MASSthetics Clan.

Today I knocked out another 45 minutes or so before prepping two meals to travel with, finishing off packing, and chatting with my Mom, then it was off to the airport.

6 or so hours later, I touched down in Edmonton.

Knowing what’s to come over the next few days, I purposely didn’t plan much for the rest of the day aside from getting groceries for tomorrow (hello, delicious carbs), a couple of espressos, and prepping my first few meals for after tomorrow’s weigh-ins. Oh, and all of the posing practice.

Now for some fun stuff.

Here’s the plan to get there:

My last meal for today will be at 8pm, and I’m cutting water around 10pm (Still at 9.5L today, which is not fun when travelling).

With my last meal I’ll be taking a double-dose of an OTC diuretic to help flush out any remaining water.

The final hour before I go to bed is going to consist of four 10 minute, piping-hot epsom salt baths, with about 5 minutes of “rest” in between.

As for what I’ll be doing in the morning to drop more weight if need be, nothing is set in stone aside from another dose of the diuretic upon waking.

That being said, at this point the plan can change at a moments notice, which means I’m in constant contact with my coach, assessing things, and hashing out the best course of action.

All in all, I’m very happy with how I’m looking, feeling, and how damn responsive my body is being.

As I’ve said before, this prep has been a relative breeze, a tremendous learning experience, as well as night and day in comparison to last year.

1 Day Out – I made weight by the skin of my teeth, and the “loading” is on

As I assumed would happen, the festivities throughout the week combined with putting the finishing touches on prep has made this week go by in the blink of an eye.

Truthfully, I’m struggling with the fact that after a year of working towards this one show, the work is now done, and tomorrow is the big dance.

I’m quite possibly the most exhausted I’ve been, aside from a few select days, during this entire process from start to finish. It’s all beginning to hit me, and even though I’ve got another meal to fit in tonight, I can’t wait to get some sleep.

Today, though, began by waking up an unsavoury 3 pounds above where I needed to be, extremely thirsty, yet still excited.

In effort to get rid of the last bit of weight before heading for weigh-ins and registration, back to pulsing Epsom salt baths for 90 minutes it was.

All the athletes from Team BC met at noon to grab our team jackets, and get a few group photos. Then began what I’ve found to be the most painful part: registration and weighing in.

Picture this: an entire room (if memory serves, there was around 350-400 competitors) jam-packed with hungry, dehydrated, exhausted meatheads all waiting to move through weigh-ins and registration in order to start filling out for tomorrow.

It’s a messy situation to say the least. Thankfully I had an idea this would be the case, managed to get near the front, and only had to wait 90 minutes to get through the process. Those poor souls who showed up late…

Weighing in itself was much more nerve-wracking than I would have liked. Throughout the morning I did all I could, and left at the last possible moment. Yet I was still sitting about a pound above where I needed to be.

After a lovely, slow, brutal waiting process, it was finally my turn to step on the scale. At first step, the scale settled at 165.0 on the dot where it froze for a moment, then dropped to 164.5.

Out the 3 shows I’ve competed at, this has been the closest I’ve been to the limit, most uncertain I’ve been of whether I’d make it or not, and also with the largest consequences hanging in the balance. By that I mean being at the bottom of a weight class at the national level is not a favourable position.

Without about 90 seconds of stepping off the scale I’d down a can of coconut water, 750ml of water, and was finally able to start the process of filling out.

These were the meals I ate to fill out:

2 ounces ground chicken + rice + 3 rice cakes (15g protein, 85g carbs, trace fats)

2 ounces ground chicken + Japanese sweet potato (fucking incredible) + 3 rice cakes (15g protein, 75g carbs, trace fats)

2 ounces ground chicken + rice (15g protein, 50g carbs, trace fats)

2 ounces ground chicken + rice (15g protein, 50g carbs, trace fats)

2 ounces ground chicken + Japanese sweet potato + 1tbsp peanut butter (15g protein, 50g carbs, 8g fat)

In terms of supplements, I’m took 300mg of ALA before meals 1, 3, 5, digestive enzyme with each meal, and another dose of the diuretic before ebed.

The Dance is Over

Man, where to start?

Leading up to the show, there was so much anticipation, excitement, and eagerness to get on stage that I’m currently crashing hard (the surges of carbs and sugar I’ve had probably aren’t helping, either).

Anyway, I’ll start this off by saying that I did *not* place where I wanted, but deep down, I know that I placed about where I deserved.

Out of 9 welterweights, I didn’t crack the top 5, but can confidently say that 6th place was mine. At the end of the day my conditioning was on point, but I was simply out-muscled by guys who have clearly been playing this game longer than I have. Especially when it comes to upper body size, which I knew would likely be the case going into the show.

Rather than dwell over not placing as high as I would have liked, there’re far too many positives coming out of this show to throw a cloud over.

In a 6 month off-season I was able to add 15 pounds of pure muscle tissue. For what it’s worth, a rate of 2.5 pounds of muscle growth per month is, well, ridiculous.

At 4 weeks out I was in better condition, and looked far better than I did on stage last year at either show.

From the start of prep for my first show last year up to today, I’ve only been “competing” for 18 months. To go from having not a clue of what I was doing to stepping on a National stage, I suppose that’s something to be proud of.

I know exactly what I need to do in order to be more competitive at this level, and that’s something you can’t learn unless you do the damn thing.

From start to finish this year’s prep was an infinitely better experience, my body responded far better, and I learned A LOT in the process.

I can confidently say that over the course off my off-season and throughout this prep, I left no stone unturned, spared no expense, took no chances, and did everything I could to improve upon last year’s shows. Mission accomplished.

While I’m not the kind of guy who wakes up striving to achieve 6th place, taking all the above into account, I’d be a fool to call my experience at Nationals a failure.

Disappointing? Absolutely, and that’s largely because I was born with a competitive nature that was fostered by playing hockey for 13 years. But, this competitive season has been far from a failure.

And that is something I want you to think about as you go about the rest of your day.

Sure, you may not have the greatest training session of your life every time you hit the gym. There’s always going to be days, sometimes weeks, where keeping your nutrition on point is a battle, and it feels like you’re not making any progress.

Thing is, your progress doesn’t lie in the end result.

True progress comes from the lessons you pick up along the way, how you learn to not make the same mistake over and over again, and the fact that no matter how perfect (or not) a day is, you’re still moving a tiny bit closer to where you want to be.

I’ve gotta say, that is the most succinctly I’ve been able to sum up my approach to training, nutrition, and health.

Lastly, I want to thank every last one of you for being here not only to improve your health and physique, but for trusting this wandering fool of a meathead to be your guide, allowing me to share my own journey with you, and for being one hell of a supportive bunch of meatheads.

While the two pictures below are far from my favourite or best poses, they’re also the only two stage shots I’ve got (we were not given much time on stage, and they blasted through each pose – that’s a tale for another day, though).

And so it is.

With my first Nationals experience now under my belt, I’m shifting my focus to brining hormonal and metabolic function back to my body, then switching gears and diving headlong into a what will be roughly a 16-month-long improvement season.

PS. 4 out of 5 lifters will let their rationalization hamster run wild. Convincing themselves they’re making progress…yet you build no muscle, and burn no fat. The 5th lifter joined the MASSthetics Clan and put the information within the (free) Hypertrophy Handbook to good use. He no longer has to rationalize his progress. It simply happens. Click here to become the 5th lifter, and let me know where to send the prestigious Hypertrophy Handbook.

[aion-rsa]

The Best Geek TV Deep Dives on YouTube

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From the heyday of Television Without Pity to niche podcasts that cover every small screen angle you can think of, TV show deep dives have always thrived online, and popular platforms like YouTube and Vimeo provide opportunities for talented creators to add a visual angle that can often make a well-edited analysis of your favorite series even more compelling.

YouTube is positively teeming with potential rabbit holes for TV obsessives to fall down. Sometimes at 3 a.m. Sometimes after a few beers. Sometimes when you should be working (couldn’t be us) but whether you’re drawn in by a near-obligatory shocked reaction thumbnail or you accidentally stumble across an interesting take on something you’re passionate about, there’s usually a rabbit hole waiting that feels like it could have been made just for you.

With any luck, falling down one of those rabbit holes ends with you landing far away from the world of destructive opinions, of which there are many, and not just on YouTube. Most of us have probably seen a clip floating around of someone spouting the most harmful, misinformed nonsense at one time or another, and asked ourselves whether giving that person a platform was really the best idea.

Well, this isn’t that. Instead, we’ve pulled together some weighty YouTube-accessible examples of what happens when someone loves a TV series or franchise so much, they can’t stop talking about it – even decades later. Most of these deep dives are a labor of love, which is not to say that they always have a happy ending.

The Retrospective

Ian Martin, who runs the YouTube channel Passion of the Nerd, says his journey began rather accidentally in his early 30s when he found himself feeling a little lost in life. He admits he tried a variety of ways to rid himself of the sensation, including “too much alcohol,” but after deciding on a career change and fruitlessly looking for ways into the voiceover industry, he decided the best course of action was to go ahead and just …make stuff. After all, this course of action didn’t require anyone else to give him a break, and made him the master of his own destiny.

“I sat down and wrote a script about a show I’d become consumed by and edited it into a video called Why You Should Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he wrote. “In that video, I mentioned that Buffy’s first season was a little rough and, for people who just wanted to get into the show, I would create a short little episode guide just to get them through the first season.”

Six years later, Martin is still at it, and his audience has grown into a supportive community that includes over sixty thousand subscribers, propped up by funding from Patreon. Not only is he still covering Joss Whedon’s first series in depth, episode-by-episode, he’s now delving into spin-off show Angel and Firefly.

Martin’s videos don’t pore over every aspect of these shows, and rarely does an instalment hit the 30-minute mark. Rather, they tend to examine the philosophy behind their themes, citing absurdist and existentialist influences. The host himself doesn’t push these ideas on his audience, but if you don’t end up buying a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea by the time you get to the end of Season 3, it may be that you’ve missed out on a pretty essential element of Buffy’s enduring appeal.

“It took me a long time to figure out what Passion of the Nerd was but I started to find its shape through the journey it was taking ME on,” he explained. “On any average day it’s a chance to make someone laugh over our shared interests. But my favorite experience of art is the one in which we find ourselves. That movie, piece of music, performance, or show that makes us feel like its creator opened up our heart to take a picture of its inner depths. And I love talking about why media MATTERS and finding those moments in popular culture. Sometimes I get to distil those moments for other people and when I do, I hope it does for them what the channel has done for me.”

Martin’s coverage of the very first episode of Buffy lies below. If you continue watching his series of videos after that, it’s unlikely you’ll want that time back. They’re incredibly thoughtful and, frankly, an absolute joy.

The Deconstruction

Ah, Twin Peaks. The show that changed television forever, and one that has been hard to forget ever since. You’ve not been able to throw a golden shovel without hitting a Twin Peaks deep dive online in the last three decades, but occasionally one arrives and threatens to pull apart the backbone of its dreamscape for good.

Twin Perfect’s Rosseter turned in a Twin Peaks deep dive last October with a running time not for the faint of heart. His deconstruction of David Lynch’s endlessly puzzling mystery, supported by myriad quotes from its beloved co-creator, is over four-and-a-half hours long, but its length certainly hasn’t put off curious viewers – over a million people have already chosen to hear what Rosseter has to say about the real meaning behind Twin Peaks.

“Garmonbozia, the Black and White Lodges, Mike, Bob and the Little Man, Judy, Audrey and Charlie, Season 3’s ending… The mystery of Twin Peaks has survived for nearly 30 years… until now,” the video promises, which is a tease that even casual fans of the series can’t possibly resist. Their mileage may vary with the host’s loud impression of Lynch throughout the video, however, even as he produces what feels like a fairly accurate interpretation of Twin Peaks’ initial intentions, its ongoing message in the prequel film Fire Walk with Me, and a gut-punching look at 2017’s The Return.

Rosseter starts out by warning his audience that if they haven’t consumed all three Twin Peaks seasons and the film, they should consider stepping back until they have, which stands to reason: he’s about to spoil most of their various twists and turns. But he then goes on to say that die-hard Twin Peaks junkies should also reconsider watching the video, because after they’ve heard him out, they might never be able to look at Twin Peaks the same way again.

For many, the temptation to potentially peek behind the red curtain has been too great to ignore, and the comment section is filled with people who sat through the whole thing, having felt truly changed by the experience.

“David Lynch didn’t even know what this show was about until he saw this video,” someone joked, while another added more solemnly “I just feel regret. I appreciate the show on a whole other level but the haunting magic that it had for me is gone.”

One viewer thought that Rosseter’s comprehensive offering “may legitimately and unironically be one of the most intelligent and well-constructed videos ever put on YouTube,” but others hit the nail on the head when they realised that unwrapping Twin Peaks’ clues over the years had only led to one significant discovery: “we were controlling Twin Peaks the entire time.”

So, what’s at the heart of Rosseter’s theory? You may want to find out for yourself, and he certainly makes an incredibly detailed case for it. In this event, a brief explanation in the next paragraph will be a SPOILER.

While it’s common knowledge that David Lynch didn’t want to reveal who was responsible for killing Twin Peaks’ central victim, Laura Palmer, and that he was forced by TV bigwigs to wrap up the storyline and the investigation into her murder during Season 2 in late 1990, Rosseter posits that the reason we were never supposed to uncover the mystery of who ended her life and get closure on her death is because Lynch fundamentally believes that consumable TV violence is rotting our brains, and that’s why he created the series in the first place.

Still intrigued? Take a look…

The Discussion

Two-time Shorty Award winner Kristen Maldonado launched her YouTube channel in 2014 as a place where pop culture meets community, and she has the kind of drive, ambition and fast turnaround skills that make other creators look like they’re napping on the job, frankly.

While working as a social media manager for MTV, she’s used her YouTube platform to support women, diversity, and LGBTQ+ representation, discussing everything from the acknowledgement of Kat’s identity on The Bold Type, to the highs and lows of TV’s YA-skewed failures, emphasising the importance of why representation matters “on screen, behind the scenes, and critically.”

Along the way, she’s become a notable queen of deep dives, and not just where TV or movies are concerned – at one point she was even documenting her own musical journey on Spotify, where she was keen to bring attention to emerging artists. Discussing TV still feels like Maldonado’s reigning passion, though, and she usually explores her favorite shows in bite-sized segments that add up to a comprehensive look at their subjects.

One show she’s been extremely passionate about is the Charmed reboot, which she was beyond excited to see come to fruition on The CW. The fantasy drama series originally ran for eight seasons between 1998 and 2006, and CBS had tried and failed to reboot it before, but this time The CW intended to get the job done, bringing the story of magic and sisterhood back to TV and hoping to entice both fans of the old series and a new, younger audience.

The reboot was initially touted across industry trades as a project that would star three Latinx actresses, and that casting choice meant a lot to Maldonado. When news later emerged that only one of the new Charmed sisters would be played by a Latina actress, she posted a video addressing her feelings of confusion about how the show was originally announced, her disappointment that the roles wouldn’t be filled by three Latinx performers, and why series creators need to start using valuable representation opportunities properly.

Maldonado has covered the Charmed reboot comprehensively since it began in 2018, and this year has moved into livestreaming her reviews, switching from shorter videos to longer discussions about the episodes. If you’re a fan of Charmed, or any of the other series she covers (and there are quite a few) you might well find her channel to be an insightful addition to your subscription list.

The Takedown

Chances are, a TV show has pissed you off or upset you before. That Game of Thrones ending? Probably. Bobby Ewing stepping out of the shower? Sure. Quantum Leap? We’re not over it. Only a few of us take the time to make a video detailing just how upset we are about a show and upload it to YouTube, though.

Mike Stoklasa is likely to be a pretty familiar face to some of the Very Online movie and TV addicts reading these words. He’s the founder of production company RedLetterMedia, through which he’s been creating content and offering his desert-dry opinion on various facets of pop culture for well over a decade.

On YouTube, Stoklasa is regularly accompanied by cohorts Jay Bauman and Rich Evans as they take a hard look at some of their favorite films from the past, some of the worst straight-to-video movies of all time, and some of the bigger releases, too. He also voices a character called Mr. Plinkett, and when he does, viewers know that they’re about to peer screaming into the void, because ‘Mr. Plinkett’ does not hold back, especially when it comes to Star Wars or Star Trek.

Stoklasa is one of the most vocal Star Trek fans alive, and is known to consistently derail otherwise unconnected discussions with his Trek references, often explaining how Star Trek may have influenced the subject’s storytelling, and how it might have been – or should have been – a positive lesson from TV past.

To say that he’s not a fan of Star Trek’s fairly recent resurgence under the eye of executive producer Alex Kurtzman is probably an understatement. He covered CBS All-Access’ Star Trek: Discovery, a series that has, for the most part, chosen to abandon Trek’s previous lean towards standalone stories and episodes in favor of season-long arcs, and he seemed interested but trepidatious ahead of Star Trek: Picard’s arrival on the streaming service. But after the show had run its course, he uploaded a 94-minute takedown called ‘Mr. Plinkett’s Star Trek Picard Review’.

The broader world of YouTube takedowns is, objectively, a cesspool – misogyny, racism and homophobia have often run rampant – but Stoklasa has been in the business of keeping more of a constructive balance going for a long time, so when ‘Mr Plinkett’s’ review of Picard appeared online towards the end of May, anyone with even a little backstory on his recent problems with Trek’s TV universe suspected that the fresh adventures of the aging ex-Enterprise captain had finally pushed him over the edge …but they weren’t quite prepared for the ‘Dear John’ letter that ultimately arrived.

Whether you enjoyed Picard or not, Stoklasa makes some constructive points in his video review, and his breakup with the current Star Trek TV world is one for the ages.

The Art of More

If it’s the visual element of a TV show deep dive you’re into, YouTube has plenty to offer.

Art meets skill as Skip Intro takes a fascinating look at the editing behind David E. Kelley’s Big Little Lies, Ladyknightthebrave spends the best part of an hour pondering how Fleabag’s gimmick of breaking the fourth wall serves the show’s characters and story, and balancing ‘point of view’ vs ‘the big picture’ becomes the focus of Lost Thoughts’ It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Island.

Here, Thomas Flight explores how HBO’s award-guzzling Chernobyl became a masterclass in perspective…

We hope you found something worth your time in this piece, and writing it up wasn’t really an excuse to discover more of them, but it also wasn’t NOT an excuse to discover more of them. So, if you’ve found any notable examples to keep us busy, please direct our attention to them in the comments, thank you.

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